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Zhc Xahe Bnoltsb Classics 

Under the editorial supervision of LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A. B.. 
Associate Professor of English in Brown University. 



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fADDISON— The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers— Abbott 
I'BURKB— Speech on Conciliation with America— Denney 
fCARLYLE— Essay on Burns— Aiton • 

COOPER— Last of the Mohicans— Lewis 
fCOLERIDQE— The Ancient Mariner, 
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DE QUINCEY-The Flight of a Tartar Tribe-FRENCH 

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fGEORGE ELIOT— Silas Marner— Hancock 
tGOLDSMlTH— The Vicar of Wakefield— Morton 

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*MILTON—L* Allegro. 11 Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas— 
Neilson .••••. 

MILTON— Paradise Lost, Books I and II— Farley 

POE— Poems and Tales, selected— Newcomer . 

POPE-Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV-Cressy and 
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SCOTT— Lay of the Last Minstrel— Moody and Willard 
SCOTT— Lady of the Lake— Moody 
SCOTT— Marmion— Moody and Willard . • 

fSCOTT- Ivanhoe— Simonds .... 

SHAKSPERE— The Neilson Edition-Edited v^rith Introduc 
tions, Notes, and Word Indexes by W. A. Neilson, Ph.D. 
Harvard University. 

As You Like It • • • • * 

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Twelfth Night 

tSHAKSPERE— Merchant of Venice— Lovett « 
THACKERAY— Henry Esmond— Phelps 
TENNYSON— Morte d' Arthur, Gareth and Lynettc. Lancelot 

and Elaine and other Poems— Reynolds • • 

fTENNYSON-The Princess— Copeland • 

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Others in Preparation. 



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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

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Ebe XaJ?e i£nQl\eb dlaeaka 



KDITBD BY 



LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B. 
Associate Professor of English in Brown University 



tTbe Xafte lengUsb Claaeics 



SELECTIONS 



THE POEMS OF TENNYSON 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 



MYRA REYNOLDS, Ph.D. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 
UNIVBRSITY OF CHICAGO 



CHICAGO 

SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

1905 



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ROST. O. tA-W CO., PKrNTERS AND £IN'X>ERS, OHIOAGO. 



TYPOGRAPHY BY 

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CONTENTS 

Introduction — page 

I. A Sketch of Tennyson's Life ...... 7 

II. Tennyson as a Poet of Nature 26 

III. Tennyson as a Student of Human Nature . 36 

IV. Leading Ideas in Tennyson's Poems ... 43 

Bibliography 55 

Selections from Tennyson — 

Gareth and Lynette 57 

Lancelot and Elaine 108 

The Passing of Arthur 157 

Mariana 174 

Recollections of the Arabian Nights 177 

The Poet 182 

The Lady of Shalott 184 

The Palace of Art 191 

The Lotos-Eaters 202 

" Of Old Sat Freedom" 209 

The Gardener's Daughter 210 

St. Simeon Stylites 220 

Ulysses . 227 

Sir Galahad 230 

The Eagle 233 

The Song of the Brook 234 

Songs from " The Princess" 236 

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington . . 240 
5 



6 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Northern Farmer— Old Style 250 

Northern Farmer — New Style 255 

In the Valley of Cauteretz 259 

The Higher Pantheism 260 

" Flower in the Crannied Wall'' 261 

Selections from " In Memoriam" 262 

''Oh! that 'twere Possible" 275 

The Revenge 279 

* The Ancient Sage • ... 286 

" Frater Ave At que Vale" 297 

Merlin and the Gleam 297 

Far-Far-Away 302 

The Throstle 303 

Crossing the Bar 304 

Notes . . . . o 305 



INTKODUOTION 

I. A SKETCH OF TENKYSON'S LIFE 

Alfred Tennyson, the fourth of twelve children all 
but two of whom lived to be over seventy, was born 
August 6, 1809, in the rectory of Somersby, Lincoln- 
shire. His father, the rector, was a tall, strong, 
energetic man, with a dominating personality. He 
had great ability and considerable learning, and most 
that the boys knew before they went to college he 
taught them. He was of a highly nervous tempera- 
ment, a man of moods, sometimes giving way to fits 
of black despondency, sometimes delighting a com- 
pany with his geniality and witty conversation. The 
poet's mother had been a great beauty and a belle in 
the county. She was extremely innocent and tender- 
hearted, yet with a strong sense of humor. ''A 
remarkable and saintly woman," said her son, 
'^always doing good by a sort of intuition." '*I once 
asked him," wrote Dr. Ker, '* whether his mother 
had not sat for the picture of the Prince's mother in 
The Prmcess [VII. 298-312] and he allowed that no 
one else had. 

*Happy he 
With such a mother! faithjin womankind 
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
He shall not blind his soul with clay.' " 
7 



8 INTRODUCTION 

The children in the Tennyson family grew up in a 
normal fashion, happy among themselves, and rejoic- 
ing in their free life in a beautiful country. They 
took long walks over the windy wolds and along the 
picturesque brooks near Somersby; they played 
imaginative games drawn from their knowledge of 
knight errantry ; they carved in wood and modeled 
in clay ; they wrote continued stories in letter form ; 
they acted old English plays. And chief in the 
athletic games, the story-telling, and the acting, was 
Alfred. The only break in this life was when, at 
about seven, the child was sent to live with his 
grandmother at Louth that he might attend the 
school there. But the master was of *'the tem- 
pestuous, flogging sort," and the lad was bitterly 
unhappy, so unhappy that in later life he ** would 
not go down the lane where the school was." 

Tennyson was very young when he began to make 
verses. Before he could read he was in the habit, 
on a stormy day, of spreading his arms to the wind 
and crying out, ^'I hear a voice that's speaking in 
the wind." In later life he said, ''The first poetry 
that moved me was my own at five years old. When 
I was eight I remember making a line I thought 
grander than Campbell, or Byron, or Scott. I rolled 
it out, it was this: 'With slaughterous sons of 
thunder rolled the flood' — great nonsense, of course, 
but I thought it fine." At about the same time he 
covered two sides of a slate with Thomsonian blank 
verse in praise of flowers. At ten he read Pope's 
Homer's Iliady and then wrote hundreds of lines in 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 9 

the regular heroic couplet. At twelve he wrote an 
epic of twelve thousand lines "a la Walter Scott." 
Little as the lines were worth, he says he never felt 
more truly inspired. He would write as much as 
seventy lines at a time and go shouting them about 
the fields in the dark. At about fourteen he wrote 
a drama in blank verse. ''From his earliest years," 
says his brother Arthur, ''he felt that he was to be 
a poet, and earnestly trained himself for his voca- 
tion." Charles Tennyson, the brother next older, 
also wrote verse, and in 1826, when the two boys 
were respectively seventeen and eighteen, they 
brought out a volume entitled Poems iy Two 
Brothers. Sixty years later these poems were 
reprinted. Tennyson had a great distaste for what 
he contemptuously called his "early rot," but the 
poems are of interest in studying his development. 
Tennyson matriculated at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, February 25, 1828. The regular academic 
life was little to his taste. The studies were, he 
said, so uninteresting that none but "dry -headed, 
calculating, angular little gentlemen" could take 
much delight in them. His chief gain from the 
university was through the men he met there, 
especially through a club known as "The Apostles," 
of which he became a member. The young men in 
this club met daily in one another's rooms, and had 
also stated meetings for the discussion of political, 
religious, philosophical, and literary topics. The 
records of the club show the seriousness with which 
questions were considered. For instance, two of the 



10 INTRODUCTION 

questions at one meeting were: Have Shelley's 
poems an immoral tendency? and, Is there any rule 
of moral action beyond expediency? It is character- 
istic of Tennyson that to the first he voted "No," to 
the second ''Aye." Of Tennyson's friends in the 
university Hallam Tennyson says, ''They were a 
genial, high-spirited, poetical set, full of speculation 
and of enthusiasm for the great literature of the 
past, and for the modern schools of thought, and 
despised rhetoric and sentimentalism. " Among 
these young men Tennyson took almost at once a 
leading place. Fanny Kemble, who used to visit 
her brother John at this time, said of Tennyson, 
"He was our hero, the great hero of our day." 
A college friend describes him as "six feet high, 
broad-chested, strong-limbed, his face Shakespearean, 
with deep eyelids, his forehead ample, crowned 
with dark wavy hair, his head finely poised, his 
hand the admiration of sculptors, long fingers with 
square tips, soft as a child's but of great size and 
strength. What struck one most about him was 
the union'of strength and refinement. " From other 
friends we learn that he was noted for "Johnsonian 
common sense, and a rare power of expression, very 
genial, full of enjoyment, full of sensitiveness, and 
full of humor; though with the passionate heart of 
a poet and often feeling the melancholy of life." 

By far the most important element in Tennyson's 
college life was his friendship with Arthur Hallam, 
the son of the great historian. They met in 1828, 
and for five years there ensued a companionship of 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 11 

rare delight and of rare value. All accounts agree 
concerning the intellectual strength, the fine taste, 
the personal grace and charm of Hallam. Tennyson 
said of him: *'He was as near perfection as mortal 
man could be." 

It was in the midst of the associations and 
pleasures of university life that the poems of 
Tennyson's first independent volume, the Poems 
Chiefly Lyrical^ were written. This volume was 
published in 1830. It shows that Tennyson had not 
yet found his own peculiar province in poetry, but it 
was, nevertheless, a most promising and significant 
production for a young man of twenty-one. The 
most favorable review was written by Arthur Hallam 
for the Englishman's Magazine^ 1831. Coleridge's 
criticism was hardly so appreciative. He admitted 
*'a good deal of beauty" in the poems he had seen, 
but added, ''The misfortune is that he has begun to 
write verses without very well understanding what 
metre is." 

In 1831 Tennyson left Cambridge without taking 
a degree. His father was in ill-health and the son 
was needed at home. A few weeks later his father 
died, but arrangements were made so that the family 
could still live at the rectory, and Alfred, in the 
absence of his older brothers, settled down as the 
practical head of the household. Arthur Hallam 
and Emily Tennyson had become engaged, so that 
Hallam was much at Somersby. The days passed 
by in a happy succession, filled to the brim with the 
pleasures of congenial companionship and congenial 



12 INTRODUCTION 

work. The many poems written during this period 
were read to the home circle, and were then sent up 
in manuscript for the judgment of the Cambridge 
** Apostles." It was said that "a daily divan con- 
tinued to* sit through the term," and that ^^Tlie 
Palace of Art was read to each man as he came up 
from his vacation." The '^Tennysonian Rhapso- 
dists," as they were called, learned the poems by 
heart, talked out of them, talked about them, and 
strove to win the suffrages of the unappreciative. 
Tennyson's second yolume, which, though it 
appeared in Dec.tei:l)>r-'of 1832, was dated 1833, was 
greeted by this circle of university friends with 
genuine admiration. But, outside the small band 
of Tennysonians, criticism was generally adverse 
and even contemptuous. Tlie Quarterly^ the most 
influential magazine of the day, voiced this hostile 
attitude. Tennyson was deeply hurt. It was his 
temperament to forget praise and remember blame, 
and all adverse judgments stuck in his mind 
and rankled. Even more acutely conscious of his 
faults than were his critics, he came to the bitter 
conclusion that he could never write so as to 
please an English audience, and he almost deter- 
mined to write no more. Arthur Hallam's faith in 
him as a poet was one of his strongest supports 
during this period of darkness and self-doubt. But 
in the very crisis of his unhappiness there came the 
news of Hallam's sudden death at Vienna. Emily 
Tennyson was ill for months. To Tennyson him- 
self the death of his friend was an almost insupport- 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 13 

able grief. **With his loss," said Tennyson, *'all 
joy seemed blotted out from my life, and I longed 
for death." 

Of the ten years following 1832 surprisingly little 
is known. The Tennysbns left Somersby in 1837. 
Thereafter they had several homes — High Beech in 
Epping Forest, then Tunbridge Wells, then Boxley 
near Maidstone, then Cheltenham. Tennyson man- 
aged the family affairs, living sometimes at home, 
sometimes in lodgings in or near London. It was a 
period of self-discipline, self-restraint, and work. 
At seventeen, at twenty-one, at twenty-three, he 
had published poems. Prom his own maturing 
critical faculty, from the harshness of hostile 
reviewers, he had learned his faults, and now, in 
**silence, obscurity, and solitude" he set himself to 
perfect his art. He refused to publish. He refused 
to sanction the publication even of friendly and 
laudatory criticisms. But, finally, in 1842, the ripe 
result of the ten years of work appeared in two 
volumes entitled Poems by Alfred Tennyson, Many 
of the poems of 1830 and 1833 reappeared, but so 
re-written as to be hardly recognizable. The new 
poems dealt with a wide range of subjects, and the 
workmanship was of striking and sustained excel- 
lence. The victory was won. There was a chorus 
of praise on both sides the Atlantic. The Dean of 
Westminster, then a young man in college, said, 
'*0n my return to Oxford in October in 1842 his 
name was on every one's lip, his poems discussed, 
criticised, interpreted; portions of them repeatedly 



14 INTRODUCTION 

set for translations in Latin and Greek verse at 
schools and colleges ; read and re-read so habitually 
that there were many of us who could repeat page 
after page from memory. " The veteran Wordsworth 
said of him, ''He is decidedly the first of our living 
poets." The following letter from Carlyle must 
have given Tennyson singular pleasure : 

''Truly it is long since in any English Book, Poetry 
or Prose, I have felt the pulse of a real man's heart 
as I do in this same. A right-valiant, true-fighting, 
victorious heart; strong as a lion's, yet gentle, 
loving, full of music; what I call a genuine singer's 
heart! There are tones as of the nightingale's; low 
murmurs as of wood-doves at summer noon ; every- 
where a noble sound as of the free winds and leaf; 
woods. ... In other words, there seems to be 
note of 'The Eternal Melodies' in this man; for 
which let all other men be thankful and joyful." 

One result of the volume of 1842 was that Tenny- 
son was granted a royal pension of £200 a year. 
There was some question whether Sheridan Knowles 
or Tennyson should have the pension, but Lord 
Houghton gave Sir Eobert Peel Ulysses to read, and 
that settled the matter in Tennyson's favor. 

The first long poem that Tennyson wrote was llie 
Princess^ which appeared in 1847. It was his con- 
tribution to the discussion of "Woman's Sphere" 
and "Woman's Eights," topics at that time of 
paramount social interest. The higher education 
of women was not, indeed, a new theme. It had 
been now and then brought to public notice by 



I 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 15 

advocate or satirist during a period of at least two 
centuries. The ''Learned Lady" as a comic type 
had persisted from the time of Moliere's Les Femmes 
Sava?ites to the end of the eighteenth century. Even 
the specific project of a college for women had been 
broached and made fun of, or bitterly and coarsely 
satirized, as in Swift's ''Madonella" papers in The 
Tatler. The advocates of higher education for 
women, such as Lady Winchilsea, Mary Astell, Defoe, 
and Steele in the early part of the eighteenth century, 
and, notably, Mary Wollstonecraft at the end of that 
century, had, however, held their own, and gradually 
there had been created, along very sensible and 
moderate lines, a public sentiment in favor of greater 
scholastic and social opportunities for women. But, 
as Mr. Wallace in his Introduction to The Princess 
points out, the general agitation concerning woman's 
position had at the time when The Princess was 
written reached a point of extravagance and hysterical 
unreason, so that Tennyson felfc himself impelled to 
utter the warning embodied in the poem. The 
essence of his teaghing seems to be that a woman 
should be well educated and free, but that her 
education and freedom should not be of such a sort 
as to unfit her for her natural place, the home. In 
form the poem was confused, so that its main drift 
was not understood till in later editions it was recast, 
and the emphasis on the child as the keynote of the 
failure of the college was reinforced by the addition 
of the songs. Portions of the poem are as splendid 
as anything Tennyson ever wrote, but taken as a 



16 INTRODUCTION 

whole, its mixture of serious and comic, and the very 
fact that it is, as the title announces, *'a medley," 
are against it. 

The year 1850 was the great year in Tennyson's 
life. In that year he brought out not only a revised 
edition of his Poems (the sixth edition), an edition 
of The Princess with the songs added (the third 
edition), but also the first edition of his great elegy, 
the In Memoriam. In June of that year he was 
married to Emily Sellwood, and in November, owing 
chiefly to Prince Albert's admiration for In Memo- 
riam^ he was made Poet Laureate. 

Some of the elegiac songs in In Memoriam had 
been written as early as 1833. Others were written 
at intervals during the following years, as the poet 
was impelled by some thought of his friend or some 
new view of the character and purpose of grief. 
There was, at first, no thought of publication, but 
as the songs grew in number Tennyson at last decided 
to weave them together into a whole. He hoped 
thus to present his conviction that "fear, doubt, and 
suffering will find answer and relief only through 
faith in a God of Love." Prom friends and critics 
the poem received the highest praise, and Tennyson's 
claims to be regarded as a great poet were put 
beyond question. 

Tennyson's marriage was an exceedingly happy 
one. His love for Emily Sellwood was of long 
standing, dating, in fact, from the day in 1836 when 
he had taken her in as bridesmaid at the marriage 
of her younger sister to his brother Charles. But 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON^S LIFE 17 

Tennyson's finances were not then such as to justify 
marriage. Throughout the ten years of his volun- 
tary apprenticeship he had lived most frugally, but 
with the publication of the In Memoriam volume 
and the certainty of a small yearly royalty on that 
and his other volumes, marriage became possible. 
The wedding took place at Shiplake Church, Oxford- 
shire, one of the most beautiful old village churches 
in England. The honeymoon was spent at Tent 
Lodge, Coniston. On the way thither they stopped 
at Clevedon and saw the church where Arthur 
Hallam was buried, and the visit seemed '^a kind of 
consecration" of their marriage. 

The first home of the Tennysons was at Chapel 
House, Montpelier Row, Twickenham. Here in 
1852 was born Hallam Tennyson, the son whose life 
was afterwards so closely identified with his father's. 
The poet's study in this house, the Green Room, is 
famous as the place where he wrote the Ode on the 
Death of the Duke of Wellington, 

In November, 1853, the Tennysons took a house 
at Farringford, at the extreme southwestern corner 
of the Isle of Wight. It was a quiet spot, not easily 
accessible, and for that reason peculiarly attractive 
to Tennyson, whose tastes and whose work made 
him prefer a secluded home. But the primary 
charm of the place was its beautiful situation. Mr. 
and Mrs. Tennyson visited the house first on a 
November day, and when they saw from the drawing- 
room windows ''a sea of Mediterranean blue, with 
rosy capes beyond, the down on the left rising above 



18 INTRODUCTION 

the foreground of undulating park, golden-leaved 
elms, and chestnuts, and red-stemmed pines, they 
agreed that they must, if possible, have that view to 
live with." Here the second son, Lionel, was born 
in 1854. 

The first important poem written here was Maud 
(1855). This is one of the most beautiful of 
Tennyson's longer poems, but the eulogy of war as 
the means whereby the hero is to be restored to 
manliness, and the nation to be rescued from com- 
mercialism, roused such a storm of hostile criticism 
that it was long before the perfection of the purely 
lyrical portions of the poem received due praise. 
Henry Taylor, Mr. Jowett, and the Brownings were, 
says Hallam Tennyson, the only ones who spoke out 
at once in favor of the poem. Mr. Mann, a little 
later in the same year, wrote Maud Vindicated^ a 
commentary welcomed by Tennyson as both true 
and full. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Van Dyke were 
among the critics who were at first adverse but who 
were won over by hearing Tennyson read the poem, 
and who afterwards ''publicly recanted" their early 
criticism. In spite of the reviewers the poem was 
apparently popular, for it was through the sale of 
this volume that Tennyson was enabled to buy Far- 
ringford in 1856. 

As Tennyson became famous, and as the neighbor- 
ing village of Freshwater changed from a hamlet to 
a summer resort, the insistent curiosity of tourists 
made his life a burden to him. So, finally. Green 
Hill, an estate in Sussex, but close to the Surrey 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 19 

line, wag bought, and here in 1867 a new and stately 
home was built. The place was named Aldworth. 
The cornerstone of the new house was laid with 
simple ceremonies on Shakespeare's birthday, April 
23. The inscription on the stone was, "Prosper 
thou the work of our hands, prosper thou our 
handiwork." After the completion of this house 
it was the custom of the Tennysons to go there 
every June, returning to Farringford in Octo- 
ber or November. The time between the Christ- 
mas and the Easter holidays was often spent in 
London. 

Tennyson's life at Farringford and Aldworth was 
one of exceptional happiness. The motto chosen 
for a new sundial at Aldworth, Horas non numero 
nisi Serenas^ describes well most of the thirty-nine 
years spent in these two beautiful homes. Tenny- 
son's poems brought in an adequate and constantly 
growing income, and the domestic life was of the 
happiest and most stimulating sort. Of Mrs. 
Tennyson, her son Hallam said: 

''It was she who became my father's adviser in 
literary matters. 'I am proud of her intellect,' he 
wrote. With her he always discussed what he was 
working at; she transcribed his poems; to her and 
to no one else he referred for a final criticism before 
publishing. She, with her 'tender, spiritual nature,' 
and instinctive nobility of thought, was always by 
his side, a ready, courageous, wise and sympathetic 
counsellor . . . and to her he wrote two of the most 
beautiful of his shorter lyrics, 'Dear, near and 



20 INTRODUCTION 

true,' and the dedicatory lines which prefaced his 
last volume, The Death of Oenone.'^^ 

Tennyson was fond of children, and he early 
made his two boys his companions. He played 
games with them, took them on long walks, read to 
them, and taught them how to observe. *'Make 
the lives of children as happy and beautiful as pos- 
sible," was his maxim. The two virtues he insisted 
on were truthfulness and courtesy. 

Tennyson was extremely hospitable and enter- 
tained largely. A Tennyson guest-book for the 
years in Farringford and Aldworth would contain a 
long list of famous names, but even this would give 
but an imperfect impression of the wide and varied 
social circle the Tennysons gathered about them. 
Tennyson apparently enjoyed this sort of social inter- 
course as much as he disliked the mere curious 
tourist. Two years before his death Mrs. Tennyson 
wrote that he had been entertaining large five o'clock 
tea parties almost daily for weeks. 

A feature of all social gatherings was Tennyson's 
reading aloud. Mmtd and the dialect poems were 
those which he preferred to read. Mrs. Ritchie 
describes his voice as "capable of delicate and mani- 
fold inflections, but with organ notes of great power 
and range." So effective was his reading of Maud^ 
with its complexity of emotion, its rapid movement 
and quick transition of mood, as to justify the state- 
ment that had he not been a great poet he might 
have been a great actor. 

Tennyson's shyness and "morbidity" in general or 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 21 

strange society was not at all apparent when he was 
host. ''In the domestic circle," says Mrs. Eitchie, 
"he talked freely and brightly." Mr. Lecky and 
Mr. Palgrave comment on his delight in witty 
stories, and on his wonderful flow and fertility in 
anecdote. Many of Tennyson's friends remark on 
his keen sense of the humorous. "His humor is of 
the dryest. It is admirable," says Mr. Locker- 
Lampson, "and he tells a story excellently and has 
a catching laugh — an entirely natural and a very 
kindly laugh." When with a person whose intellect 
stimulated his own and with whom he felt perfectly 
at home, Tennyson was at his social best. When 
Mr. Browning came to dinner and there were no 
other guests, Hallam Tennyson says the talk was the 
best he had ever heard, but too rapid and varied 
and brilliant even to attempt to reproduce. 

But social life, however delightful, was never 
allowed to interfere with Tennyson's work. At 
the beginning of his ten solitary years of appren- 
ticeship he laid out for himself a steady and heavy 
course of reading, and through his life he kept up 
the habits thus formed. The books that he read 
would, if listed, make a library as remarkable for 
its size as for its variety. He kept himself informed 
on new discoveries and theories in Astronomy, 
Physics, Chemistry, and Geology. He studied all 
sorts of books that could make him more intel- 
ligently familiar with the facts of nature. He kept 
up his Greek and Latin. He read widely in French, 
German, and Italian poetry. On a tour to Italy he 



22 INTRODUCTION 

took with him, says his son, *'his usual travelling 
companions, Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, Virgil, 
Horace, Pindar, Theocritus, and probably the Divina 
Commedia and Goethe's Gedichte.'^^ He was well- 
read in English poetry, both old and contemporary. 
And he was an incessant novel reader. As a result, 
perhaps, of reading so catholic in scope, his literary 
judgments were, as Mr. Lecky says, ''singularly 
sane and unexaggerated. ' ' His strongest admiration 
was always for Shakespeare, whom he knew so well 
that he believed himself able to detect spurious 
passages by instinct. Of the intellectual process 
necessary to produce Shakespeare's plays he said he 
could not even form an apprehension, ''the intel- 
lectual genius of Shakespeare and the religious 
genius of Jesus Christ being beyond the intelligence 
of man." A very interesting list of Tennyson's 
literary appreciations might be gathered from the 
Memoir^ his experience with Byron being especially 
worthy of note. At fourteen he was an "enormous 
admirer" of Byron. At seventeen he put his lord- 
ship away and could never thereafter even give him 
his due. But on the whole we find Tennyson 
voicing opinions in nowise new or startling, open- 
minded to various sorts of excellence, independent, 
cool, and judicial in tone, without fads or whim- 
sicalities of taste, not carried ofiE his feet by any 
"blind hysterics of the Celt." 

Happy domestic and social life, delightful holiday 
tours, the study of nature, books, and men, were all 
but the setting for Tennyson's lifework, which was 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON^S LIFE 23 

the writing of poems ; and the composition of these 
poems, their publication, and their reception by 
readers and critics were the center of interest in the 
life at Farringford and Aldworth. After Maud in 
1855 followed four years of work devoted in the main 
to The Idylls of the King^ four of which came out 
in 1859. Enoch Arden was published in 1864, The 
Holy Grail in 1870, The Last Tournament in 1871, 
Gareth and Lynette in 1872. 

The dramas came between 1875 and 1892. It is 
remarkable that at sixty-six years of age Tennyson 
should have undertaken a new kind of writing. His 
first drama was one of a proposed trilogy of historical 
plays representative of periods that would complete 
the line of Shakespeare's English chronicle-plays. In 
the order of publication these plays are Qiieen Mary 
(1875), Harold (1876, but dated 1877), and Becket 
(1884). Of these Tennyson cared most for Queen 
Mary. The character of Mary strongly interested 
him and he thought there was not in all history any- 
thing more afEecting than the final tragedy of her life. 
But readers and audiences unite in counting Becket 
the greatest of Tennyson's plays. J. R. Green said 
that all his researches into the annals of the twelfth 
century had not given him so vivid a conception of 
the character of Henry 11. and his court as was 
embodied in this play. As a stage tragedy, Irving 
said he considered it one of the three most suc- 
cessful plays produced by him at the Lyceum. 

Besides the historical plays, Tennyson wrote 
four dramas that met with varying fortunes. The 



24 INTRODUCTION 

Promise of May (acted 1882), an attempt to write ''a 
modern village tragedy," met with open hostility 
because in the character of the hero Tennyson was 
thought to give an intentional caricature of Free 
Thought and Socialism. The Falcon was brought 
out by the Kembles in 1879. The Cup^ magnifi- 
cently staged by Irving and Terry in 1881, had a 
long run. The Foresters^ with music by Sir Arthur 
Sullivan, costumes fashioned after old designs in the 
British Museum, and scenes copied from Whymper's 
beautiful pictures of Sherwood Forest, was produced 
in New York in 1892 by Augustin Daly with Ada 
Eehan as a most successful Maid Marian. 

Throughout the whole period from 1850 there were 
also many minor publications, and numerous new 
editions of poems in revised form. Tennyson's liter- 
ary activity lasted with almost unimpaired originality 
and vigor till the last year of his long life. Probably 
from 1842, certainly from 1850, his place as the first 
of living English poets was unquestioned. With the 
appearance of TlieHoly Grail volume his fame reached 
its highest point. Ten thousand copies were sold 
in the first week after publication, and fine reviews 
appeared in the Spectator^ Edinburgh^ and Quarterly. 
The drop of bitter in Tennyson's full cup of praise 
was the denunciatory criticism awakened by Maud^ 
which he himself regarded as one of his greatest 
poems. Of the honors that came to Tennyson after 
1850 the most distinguished were the D. C. L. degree 
conferred upon him by Oxford in 1855, and the 
peerage conferred upon him by the Queen in 1884. 



A SKETCH OF TENNYSON'S LIFE 25 

From his youth up Tennyson had exceptional 
physical vigor. Even at eighty-two he showed endur- 
ance and agility beyond that of much younger men. 
His death, which occurred in his eighty-fourth year, 
was exceedingly peaceful and after but a brief illness. 
On the following morning Dr. Dabbs published a 
medical bulletin in which he said : 

''On Thursday, October 6th, 1:35 A. M., the 
great poet breathed his last. Nothing could have 
been more striking than the scene during the last 
few hours. On the bed a figure of breathing marble, 
flooded and bathed in the light of the full moon 
streaming in through the oriel window; his hand 
clasping the Shakespeare which he had asked for but 
recently, and which he had kept by him to the end." 

To this account Hallam Tennyson adds : 

''We placed Cymbeline with him, and a laurel 
wreath from Virgil's tomb and wreaths of roses, the 
flower which he loved above all flowers, and some of 
his Alexandrian laurel, the poet's laurel. On the 
evening of the 11th the coffin was set upon our 
wagonette, made beautiful with stag's-horn moss 
and the scarlet Lobelia Cardinalis ; and draped with 
the pall, woven by working men and women of the 
north and embroidered by the cottagers of Keswick ; 
and then we covered him with the wreaths and 
crosses of flowers sent from all parts of Great 
Britain. The coachman who had been for more than 
thirty years my father's faithful servant led the 
horse. 

"Oui;selves, the villagers, and the school children 



26 INTRODUCTION 

followed over the moor through our lane towards 
a glorious sunset, and later through Haslemere 
under brilliant starlight. On the 12th Tennyson 
was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was laid 
next to Robert Browning and in front of the Chaucer 
monument. The funeral service was simple but 
majestic. The music was 'Crossing the Bar,' set 
by Dr. Bridge, and 'Silent Voices,' a melody in F 
minor, set by Mrs. Tennyson at her husband's 
express request. While waiting for the service many 
in the vast silent audience were seen reading In 
Memoriam,'*^ 

No words can more fitly close the life of Tennyson 
than those lines quoted by Hallam Tennyson from 
The Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. 

**0n God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: 
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: 
The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; 
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 
He is gone who seem'd so great. — 
Gone; but nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here, and we believe him 
Something far advanced in State, 
And that he wears a truer crowTi 
Than any wreath that man can weave him. 
Speak no more of his renown, 
Lay your earthly fancies down, 
And in the vast cathedral leave liim, 
God accept him, Christ receive him.'' 

II. TEKNYSOK AS A POET OF NATURE 

Not even the casual reader of Tennyson's poems 
can fail to be struck by his varied, minute and 
accurate knowledge of the world about him, by his 



TENNYSON AS A POET OF NATURE 27 

unfailing delight in nature, and by the remarkable 
finish and beauty of his descriptions. For comment 
these three points may be conveniently considered 
together, and they could be abundantly illustrated 
from almost any part of Tennyson's poetry of 
nature. Take, for instance, his studies of little 
streams, as notably in The Brook. Every portion 
of the stream seems to be of interest to him. He 
describes the cresses or withered leaves or bright 
pebbles in its bed. He has all kinds of apt words for 
the movement of the water, for its sound, for its 
sparkle and gleam. All the details of the banks, their 
curves or sharp turns, their variations in height, 
color, and foliage, are clearly given. The following 
brief similes descriptive of two ways in which the 
water of a brook meets an impediment would of 
themselves mark Tennyson as a poet of close obser- 
vation and with a gift for simple yet adequate 
phrasing : 

'^As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 
Running too vehemently to break upon it/' 

Marriage of Geraint. 

"si brook 
With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white 
Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave." 

The Holy Grail. 

Even better illustrations would come from his 
descriptions of the ocean. ''Water is the element I 
love best of all the four," said he, and this prefer- 
ence is amply proved not only by his frequent lines 
on inland waters, but especially by his many fine 
passages on the ocean. From his earliest years he 



28 INTRODUCTION 

is said to have had a passion for the sea. He wrote 
once to Mrs. Howitt: ''There was no more sea^ says 
St. John in Revelation. ... I remember reading 
that when a child, and not being able to reconcile 
myself to a future where there should be no more 
sea." All through his life Tennyson loved and 
studied shores and bays and crags and waves. In 
1848 he wrote of a proposed sojourn at Bude: *'I 
hear that there are larger waves there than on any 
other part of the British coast, and must go thither 
and be alone with God." When he reached Bude 
at night he exclaimed, ''Where is the sea? Show 
me the sea!" and hurried out with such impetuosity 
that he fell, he says, "sheer down, upward of six 
feet, over wall on fanged cobbles." But he was 
immediately up and away over the dark hill to the 
shore. Many passages might be quoted to show how 
fully this enthusiasm for the ocean is reflected in his 
poetry. There are pictures rich in color, as, 

'* Where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue 
Play'd into green." 

Geraint and Enid. 

**By bays, the peacock's neck in hue/' 

The Daisy. 

"The liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea, 
The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land." 

Maud. 

There is occasionally a picture of utter gentleness, 
like that in the first part of The Lotos-Eaters. 
More often there are descriptions of the ocean in 
wild weather. The German Ocean in a storm was 
Tennyson's especial delight, and his characteristic 



TENNYSON AS A POET OF NATURE 29 

ocean poetry is of a ''dim sea vext with scudding 

drifts," or of ''aDgry waves on an iron coast." The 

emphasis is nowhere on "tender curving lines of 

creamy spray," but on ''ocean ridges roaring into 

cataracts," or "breakers that boom and blanch on 

precipices," Of the accuracy of his ocean pictures, 

even of the briefest and most casual ones, we have 

interesting confirmation from men competent to 

speak. Tyndall was one day sitting on the beach at 

Freshwater and listening to the grinding noise made 

by the innumerable sharp collisions of flint pebbles 

rolled back and forth by the waves. As an apt 

description of the sound he quoted the following line 

from Maud: 

**Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragged down by 
the wave.'' 

and Hallam Tennyson says that this line was actually 

written about this very beach. 

Or take this comment of Mr. Swinburne on the 

line in The Marriage of Geraint: 

"And white sails flying on the yeUow sea/' 

"I could Aot but feel conscious," says Mr. Swin- 
burne, "at once of its charm and of the equally 
certain fact that I, though cradled and reared by 
the sea, had never seen anything like that. But on 
the first bright day I ever spent on the eastern coast 
of England I saw the truth of this touch at once, 
and recognized once more with admiring delight the 
subtle and sure fidelity of that happy and studious 
hand. There, on the dull, yellow, foamless floor of 
dense discolored sea, so thick with clotted sand that 



30 INTRODUCTION 

the water looked massive and solid as the shore, the 
white sails flashed whiter against it and along it as 
they fled ; and I knew once more the truth of what I 
never had doubted — that the eye and hand of 
Tennyson may always be trusted, at once and alike, 
to see and to express the truth." 

In nearly all realms of nature Tennyson was 
equally exact in his facts and felicitous in his phrase. 
Trees he knew as few poets have done. He pictures 
the age, the size, the stubborn endurance, the lion- 
like force of the oak. He runs through the cycle of 
the life of the chestnut from the winter buds to the 
fall of the shining nuts. The deep-red buds of the 
lime, its nectar-laden blossoms, bee-haunted, its 
mass of foliage, are perfectly described. One of the 
most charming passages in Cranford is the comment 
of old Mr. Holbrook on the surprisingly accurate 
description in these two lines : 

''More black than ashbuds in the front of March/' 
''A cedar spreads his dark green layers of shade." 

** Capital term — layers' ! Wonderful -man !" said 
Mr. Holbrook, and the old gentleman then berated 
himself in fine shape for not knowing that ashbuds 
are black in March. ''And I've lived all my life in 
the country; more shame for me not to know. 
Black: they are jet black, madam." 

Tennyson's studies of animal life are hardly less 
interesting than those of inanimate nature. This is 
especially true of his descriptions of birds. For 
concentration and strength few passages in his poems 



TENNYSON AS A POET OF NATURE 31 

can surpass his lines on the eagle. He gives charm- 
ing studies of birds in some characteristic attitude 
or occupation, as in the little sketch of the three 
gray linnets wrangling on a thistle in Guinevere 
(1. 252) or of the disconsolate robin in an autumn 
storm in JS^ioch Arden (1. 672). There are also 
effective passages in which many familiar birds, pre- 
sented in a phrase or two, combine to give the 
general spirit of a scene, as in the description of 
the brilliant day in May in The Gardener'' s Daughter^ 
or in the more complex use of bird flight and bird 
song to present the joyous life of the opening year 
in The Progress of Spring. Better still are those 
passages in which, without any attempt to be descrip- 
tive, Tennyson gives a lyrical reproduction of the 
musical and spiritual qualities of the song, as notably 
in The Throstle. 

The foregoing illustrations are taken almost at 
random from a mass of material equally indicative 
of fine observation and felicitous phrasing. They 
seem meager enough, but are perhaps sufficient to 
suggest Tennyson's high rank as a descriptive poet 
of nature. 

It remains to speak of Tennyson's way of using 
nature in close connection with man. His poems 
are rich in metaphors and similes drawn from nature, 
and these figures are marked not only by his cus- 
tomary fidelity to the fact and charm of phrase, but 
also by a subtle harmony between the figure and the 
human mood or experience to be illustrated. It is 
surprising to discover how large a proportion of 



32 INTRODUCTION 

Tennyson's best brief descriptions occur in these 
similitudes. He apparently sees nature most sym- 
pathetically when he sees in it some human analogy. 
Of description of nature dissociated from man, 
such description as we have, for instance, in Words- 
worth's Yew Trees y there are almost no examples 
in Tennyson. His landscapes are definitely intended 
as a setting for human beings, and his especial 
effort is to secure congruity between subject and 
scene. Frequently the same landscape is pre- 
sented at different seasons to accompany different 
phases of experience. The contrast between the 
Lady of Shalott weaving her gay web and singing 
her clear song in Camelot, and the lady after she 
has seen '*her own mischance," is not more striking 
than the contrast between the brilliant summer 
weather and the autumn rains of the two portions of 
the poem. Mariana in the Moated Grange is admir- 
able as an example of nature used not only as an 
appropriate background, but actually fused with 
the human experience. Take but one detail of the 
scene, the solitary tree. This poplar, shadowy, 
restless, vexed by the winds, making its moan, is 
but the analogue of the maiden herself. And the 
tree by color and motion and sound spoke to Mariana 
and was a part of her spiritual experience. An 
interesting contrast might be made with the chest- 
nut trees in The Miller'' s Daughter. Their wealth 
of bloom, breadth of shade, their fruitfulness, 
exactly accord with the beauty, comfort, and settled 
bliss of this domestic idyll. 



TENNYSON AS A POET OF NATURE 33 

The poems just cited are from Tennyson's early 
work, but poems from any period of his literary 
activity would show a similar delight in a close har- 
mony between the human experience and its land- 
scape setting. One example from the later poems 
will suflice. Tennyson himself calls attention to the 
unity given to the Idylls by the fact that they follow 
the round of the seasons. Tlie Coming of Arthur 
is on the night of the New Year. Gareth and 
Lynette^ the story of youthful goodness, courage, 
endurance, and victory, is laid in the springtime. 
The following autumn-tide and the withered leaf 
mark the tone of the sad pageant in The Last 
Tournament. In Guinevere the white mist covering 
the full moon is symbolical of the story it introduces. 
When Arthur leaves Guinevere he disappears 
enwound fold by fold in the vapor, and passes ghost- 
like to his doom. In The Passing of Arthur the 
union of man and nature is so close that they can not 
be thought of separately. The clouds, the wander- 
ing wind, the moonlit haze among the hills, the 
shrilling of the ghost, the cries as from some lonely 
city, are alike mystical, non-human. This mys- 
terious calling of nature and the spirit world are 
the fit prelude for the strange story of the king's 
death. The battle itself was fouglit on the last day 
of the year, in a mist that confounded friend with 
foe. But at twilight a bitter wind from the north 
cleared away the mist, and the final scene of Arthur's 
life took place under a full, unclouded moon that 
flooded the winter world with radiance. The note 



34 INTRODUCTION 

of hope is given by the dawn of the new sun of the 
new year. 

Sometimes the desire for congruity is pushed so 
far in Tennyson's poems as to interfere with the 
actuality of the scene. This is true in what Mr. 
Stopford Brooke calls the invented landscape, that 
is, a landscape the details of which, separately true, 
have never been seen in the combination indicated. 
Such landscapes are art products. The theme, the 
motif, rules the selection of every detail. It is 
an interesting kind of work and Tennyson early tried 
his hand at it. The Lotos-Eaters is a fine example. 
All the details contribute to the impression of 
languor. In the story, as Homer gives it, there is 
none of this description. Tennyson has created a 
landscape the purpose of which is to objectify the 
longing of the mariners for rest on a quiet shore. 
The stress and turbulence of the ocean, the hateful- 
ness of the dark-blue sea, are in the background of 
the memory merely to emphasize the luxurious 
repose of the present. In RecoUectmis of the 
Aralian Nights there was no need of exact geo- 
graphical knowledge of the River Tigris. Moonlight 
and starlight, the darkness alive with sparkle and 
shimmer, the dim, rich outlines, the coolness and 
silence, the oriental trees and flowers, the penetrat- 
ing odors, the magical song of the nightingale, are 
not to be combined into a real landscape. Their 
purpose is to create a mood, to prepare the imagina- 
tion for the good Haroun Al Raschid. 

Tennyson is, of course, not alone in making land- 



TENNYSON AS A POET OF NATURE 35 

scapes that are confessedly art products. Shelley's 
Alas f 07* and The Sensitive Plant admirably illustrate 
the same tendency to let the theme create the set- 
ting. These landscapes, as the examples cited show, 
have their own peculiar charm., but it must be 
admitted that it is not the highest possible charm. 
The art, the workmanship, the deft adjustment of 
scene to the subject, are somewhat too apparent. A 
more natural and simple union of man and nature is 
more convincing. Such landscapes would, for in- 
stance, be quite alien to the methods of stricter 
realists like Wordsworth and Browning. Yet the 
apparently casual descriptive touches in poems such 
as Wordsworth's Michael or Browning's By the Fire' 
side not only give scenes sharply individualized 
as scenes, but they are more vitally in harmony 
with the human elements of the poems than any 
landscapes constructed for the purpose could pos- 
sibly be. 

A comparison of Tennyson with other poets of 
nature almost surely results in a reestablished belief 
that Wordsworth, at least, has more surely gone to 
the heart of the matter, has given us a more pene- 
trating and inspiring interpretation of the world 
about us, and has indicated a more vital union of 
man and nature. Yet we may justly say that Tenny- 
son's poems through the breadth and accuracy of his 
knowledge, through his exquisiteness of phrase and 
picture, through his artistic use of nature in inti- 
mate relation to human experience, offer delights 
of a rare and abiding sort. 



36 INTRODUCTION 

III. TENNYSON AS A STUDENT OF HUMAN NATURE 

Tennyson's poems present an unusually wide range 
of characters drawn from English farm or village 
life. Hallam Tennyson writes of his father: ''He 
said that, excepting the poems suggested by simple, 
old-world, classical subjects, he had mostly drawn 
his scenes in England, because he could not truly 
portray the atmosphere of foreign lands." He be- 
gan his studies of everyday life in The May Queen 
and Tlie Miller'' 8 Daughter in 1833. In the volume 
of 1842 were two more domestic idylls, Dora and 
The Oardener^s Daughter, It was, however, the 
poems in the Enoch Arden volume of 1864 that 
gained for Tennyson the appellation, "Poet of the 
People." Other poems of common life appeared in 
successive publications, some of the most vigorous 
studies being in the latest volumes. These poems 
fall naturally into two classes, humorous studies and 
pathetic or tragic studies. 

The Northern Farmer, Old Style (1864), the first 
of the humorous dialect poems, was a surprise. Noth- 
ing in Tennyson's work had indicated a gift for verse 
smacking so heartily of the soil. Eobert Browning 
wrote: '''Enoch' continues the perfect thing I 
thought it at first reading; but the 'Farmer,' taking 
me unawares, astonished me more at this stage of 
acquaintanceship." This poem had many worthy 
successors. Tlie Northern Farmer, New Style (1869) , 
The Northern Collier and The Village Wife (1880), 
The Sjnnster's Sioeet-Arts (1885), Oiod Rod (1889), 
and The Church Warden and the Curate (1892) make 



AS A STUDENT OF HUMAN NATURE 37 

up the list. His material came from all sorts of 
sources. The Village Wife^ a shrewd study of a 
vain, ignorant, backbiting old gossip, was dravvm 
from a woman he knew in Lincolnshire. The 
Northern Cohhler and Owd Rod were founded on 
stories he had read. Of the *' Northern Farmers," 
old and new style, Tennyson says, *'The first is 
founded on the dying words of a farm-bailiff as 
reported to me by a great-uncle of mine when verg- 
ing upon 80 — *God A'mighty little knows what He's 
about a-taking me. An' Squire will be so mad an' 
all.' I conjectured the man from that one say- 
ing. . . . *The Farmer, new style,' is likewise 
founded on a single sentence, 'When I canters my 
'erse along the ramper (highway) I 'ears proputty, 
proputty, proputty.' I had been told a rich farmer 
in our neighborhood was in the habit of saying this. 
I never saw the man, and know no more of him. It 
was also reported of the wife of this worthy that, 
when she entered the salle d manger of a sea-bathing 
place, she slapt her pockets and said, *When I 
married I brought him £5,000 on each shoulder.' " 
So true are these stories in dialect and feeling that 
when they were first read in Lincolnshire a farmer's 
daughter said, ^'That's Lincoln's labourers' talk and 
I thought Mr. Tennyson was a gentleman." Of all 
these poems perhaps the first is the most striking. 
This picture of the rough, coarse, thick-headed farm- 
bailiff with his unformed conceptions of ''God- 
amoighty," his contemptuous estimate of the Parson 
and the Doctor, his tremendously real sense of duty 



38 INTRODUCTION 

to the *'Squoire, and the land," his hatred of inno- 
vation, his immorality, his vanity, his stubbornness, 
is the most strongly marked and dramatically real 
of Tennyson's character studies. In effective con- 
trast to the grim humor of this unashamed soliloquy, 
is the shrewd worldly-mindedness of the new style 
Farmer, whose creed is expressed in the line : 

"Proputty,proputty sticks, and proputty, proputty graws.'* 

Portions of The Northern Cobbler are charming, 
especially the lines about Sally, ''sa pratty an' neat 
an' sweat." The Spinster's self-congratulatory 
review of the offers she has refused is a delightfully 
genial and humorous study. The last of these 
dialect poems, the one in which the churchwarden 
gives the new curate advice as to the best way to rise 
in the world, is keen, shrewd, sarcastic, and is 
hardly behind the first ^'Farmer" in the vigor and 
skill with which the character is portrayed. 

More numerous are studies of tragic or pathetic 
import. The longest of these poems is the story of 
Enoch Arden^ who is, up to the time of his exile, a 
rough sailor subject to the labors and the privations, 
and sharing the ambitions, natural to his class. But 
the emphasis of the poem is on the inner rather 
than on the outer history of Enoch's life. Words- 
worth had led the way in revealing the dignity and 
nobility inherent in men of obscure and humble life, 
but even he never created a character more perfectly 
illustrative of the lines in Tennyson's second 
Loclcsley Hall: 



AS A STUDENT OF HUMAN NATURE 39 

Tlowmen, shepherds, have I found, and more than once 

and still could find, 
Sons of God and kings of men, in utter nobleness of 
mind." 

The sweet homeliness and truth of the first part 
of Enoch Arden^ the tragic conflict, the dignity of 
self-control and self-abnegation in the second part, 
gave the poem a wide popular appeal. 

That in a theoretical or abstract way Tennyson 
was neither ignorant nor unmindful of the seamy 
side of life, is shown by his scornful arraignment in 
the second Loclcsley Hall of a society that can boast 
of *' Progress in Science and Invention" and rest 
unmindful of the ''glooming alleys" of the city slum 
where "Progress halts on palsied feet," where "the 
smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted 
floor," where "children blacken soul and sense," 
where the "haggard sempstress" is scrimped of her 
daily bread, but he has no characters drawn from 
realms so sordid. In most of his serious studies 
drawn from humble life the people seem to be fairly 
well to do. Or, at least, the tragedy or pathos of 
their lives does not come from poverty or its con- 
comitants. But these characters cover a wide range 
of personalities, and very many phases of life. 
Emmie^ a picture drawn from real life, describes a 
lonely, timid little girl in a great hospital. Of great 
power is the poem Rizpah^ also based on real life. 
It is a story of mother-love, which, violently 
thwarted, yet persists in half-mad intensity till 
death. Of a different tone is The Grandmother^ a 
description of an aged mother who has known the 



40 INTRODUCTION 

''sorrow and shine of life, the flower and the thorn," 
and who has outlived her husband and most of her 
children, but who dwells so in memory and the 
thought of the life to come that the news of the 
death of her eldest son can hardly make her weep. 
Mrs. Greville says of Carlyle, to whom some one read 
this poem in 1889, ''The truth of 'The Grand- 
mother' quite upset him — he kept saying, 'Poor old 
body ! Poor old body ! And did Alfred write that ! 
Well, I didn't know it.'" 

Young women, country born and bred, form a 
distinct class among Tennyson's characters. Dora 
is the story of a "nobly simple country girl," said 
Tennyson, "and so had to be written in the simplest 
possible style." Of this poem Wordsworth said, 
"Mr. Tennyson, I have been endeavoring all my life 
to write a pastoral like your 'Dora' and have not 
succeeded." Tennyson has no other poem so per- 
fectly bare, straightforward, and unadorned as this 
one. In grief and self-abnegation Dora is the coun- 
terpart of Enoch Arden, but all the tragic results of 
the obstinate tyranny of the old farmer, her guardian, 
are told with a stern Hebraic reticence. In striking 
contrast to Dora is The Gardener'* s Daughter, All 
the poet's resources in the way of rich description are 
lavished on this poem. All possible Maytime joys 
crowd upon the senses. There is an ecstasy of bird- 
song, the winds are full-fed with perfumes. Dewy- 
fresh fields, a broad stream with its lazy lilies, em- 
bowering trees, lilac-shadowed paths, a garden set in 
blossoming squares, are described with lovely elabora- 



AS A STUDENT OF HUMAN NATURE 41 

tion of detail to make the appropriate setting for 
this ''Rose among roses." In personal appearance, 
temperament, and life history Dora and Eose are at 
opposite ends of the scale, and Rose is certainly 
more Tennysonian than Dora. Alice, the daughter 
of the wealthy miller, and Katie Willows, the 
daughter of garrulous farmer Philip, are girls of the 
type of Rose. There are no complexities, no sub- 
tleties, no problems, in their natures or lives. They 
are represented as fresh, beautiful young girls, 
simple-hearted, refined, and gentle, with sweet, shy 
ways, but with quiet dignity, self-respect, and 
courage. They are given happy love stories and we 
are told that their sweet girlhood blossoms into a 
womanhood of comfort and blessing. Throughout 
these love stories of the village two qualities are appar- 
ent. One is the idealization of the village maidens. 
Except the wife of Enoch Arden, and perhaps Dora, 
these daughters of the miller, the gardener, and the 
farmer have ladylike delicacies and refinements, 
that from the beginning fit them for the mansion 
rather than for their own homes ; and happily they 
all marry into a sphere much higher than that into 
which they were born. The second quality is a 
certain undue elaboration of emotion on the part of 
the lovers, a subjugation to feeling and a luxuriating 
in it that come perilously near to sentimentality. 

The characters already cited show with what 
promptness and insight Tennyson seized upon liter- 
ary material in the life about him. But many of 
his characters are the outcome of his wide and 



42 INTRODUCTION 

varied reading. The Lotos-Eaters^ Oenone^ Tiresiasy 
TitlioniLs^ Lucretius^ St, Simeon Stylites^ The Ciip^ 
are from Greek and Latin stories. Ulysses is from 
Dante, The Golden Supper from Boccaccio, The 
Voyage of Maeldiine from Joyce's Old English 
Romances. Most of the Idylls of the King are from 
Malory's 3Iorte D^Arthur and Lady Charlotte 
Guest's Mal)inogio7i. The Dream of Fair Women 
was meant as a companion to Chaucer's Legend of 
Good Women^ and the individual women, Helen of 
Troy, Iphigenia, Cleopatra, Jephthah's Daughter, 
Fair Eosamond and Joan of Arc, are all based on 
well-known literary sources. More recent literature 
was also drawn upon. Columius came from Irving's 
Life of Columius^ and Dora was suggested by ''Dora 
Creswell" in Miss Mitford's Our Village. Tenny- 
son's use of literary material is of great interest. 
He condenses or expands; he adds, or rejects, or 
changes details at will; and he makes old stories 
vehicles for modern thought or morality. It is a 
delightful and instructive study to track some of his 
poems back to their confessed originals. Dora and 
Dora Cresvjell^ Ulysses and Dante's Inferno XXVI, 
90-129, and Tlie Lotos-Eaters and Odyssey IX, 82 
seq., would be interesting and available topics for 
comparison. Mr. Churton Collins thinks the frame- 
work for Enoch Arden was suggested by Adelaide 
Procter's Homeioard Bound in her Legends and 
Lyrics^ but Tennyson said he had never seen Miss 
Procter's poem. But if Tennyson had used it as his 
source, a comparison of the two would be one sure 



LEADING IDEAS IN TENNYSON'S POEMS 43 

way of making his genius apparent. It is, in fact, 
true that an intimate knowledge of the original almost 
always results in a higher estimate of Tennyson as a 
poet. Either he shows himself capable of writing 
poems that will stand comparison with great originals 
on the same themes, or he shows himself capable of 
taking a hint or a plan from feeble work and ex- 
panding it in rich and splendid form. 

IV. LEADING IDEAS IK TENNYSOK'S P0E3IS 

Tennyson's long period of literary activity (1830- 
1892) was synchronous with social, political, religious, 
and literary movements so complex and diverse that it 
becomes almost impossible to analyze or classify them 
in brief space, and still more difficult to indicate his 
relation to each of them. Dry den. Pope, Wordsworth 
can be more easily ''placed" in their respective periods 
than can Tennyson in his. Even if we should con- 
fine our attention entirely to literature it would be 
difficult to comprehend in one statement a period 
inclusive of Coleridge and Kipling. It needs a 
moment's reflection to realize how far back the 
beginning of Tennyson's work reaches. Keats, 
Shelley, and Byron, to be sure, died while he was a 
boy, but Crabbe and Scott might have seen his 1830 
volume, and the 1833 volume came out a year before 
the death of Lamb and of Coleridge. Tennyson is 
said to have been a great reader of novels, and his 
contemporaries certainly offered him abundant 
opportunities for indulging this habit. He might, 
had he been so minded, have read, as they came 



44 INTRODUCTION 

from the press, the later novels of Scott, the nauti- 
cal tales of Marryat, the Irish novels of Lever, all 
the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Charles Eeade, 
Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, George Meredith, 
Anthony Trollope, Charles Kingsley, Wilkie Collins, 
and a fair proportion of the works of Thomas Hardy, 
W. D. Ho wells, Henry James, and Robert Louis Ste- 
venson. Poetry was hardly less voluminous, though 
it offers fewer names of equal distinction. Tenny- 
son's literary career includes the period in v/hich 
appeared the entire work of the Brownings, Matthew 
Arnold, Arthur Hugh Clough, Edward Fitzgerald, 
William Morris, the Eossettis, and Swinburne, and 
the earlier work of the men of the present genera- 
tion. In essay, social study, or history we go down 
the list from Lamb and De Quincey through 
Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, Spencer, Mill, Froude, 
and Lecky. In science the great books were Lyell's 
Principles of Geology (1830-33), Darwin's Origin 
of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871), and 
Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy (begun in 1862). 

Tennyson was ten years older than Queen Victoria, 
who came to the throne in 1837, when he was twenty- 
eight years old. In the chief events of her reign he 
was always deeply interested. Two great steps 
towards freedom, the outcome of previous agitation, 
occurred before her accession to the throne. They 
were the passage of the bill for Catholic Emanicipa- 
tion in 1829, and the final bill for the Abolition of 
Slavery in 1833. Another important movement 
begun before 1837 was the attempt to secure electoral 



LEADING IDEAS IN TENNYSON'S POEMS 45 

reform. By the three bills of 1832, 1867-8, and 
1884-5, power passed gradually from holders of great 
estates to the hands of the people. The work of the 
Chartists from 1838 to 1849, the work of the Anti- 
Corn-Law League culminating under the ministry 
of Sir Kobert Peel in 1846, the ever recurring ques- 
tion of the best government for Ireland, England's 
various foreign wars, especially the Crimean War 
in 1854-6 — all of these are but salient features of 
a complex life the elements of which combined and 
recombined in many forms between 1830 and^ 1892. 

The fact that Tennyson was never indifferent to 
the questions of the day, and in prose and! poetry 
gave utterance to his views on a vast number 'of 
topics, makes it impossible to do more in a brief 
survey than to indicate some of the ideas on which 
he placed most emphasis. 

Tennyson wrote many poems on political or patri- 
otic themes, but with one or two exceptions they are 
not his best work. His steady conservatism, his 
respect for law and order, may be safe to live by, 
but they are not inspiring poetical themes. He is, 
to be sure, in favor of freedom and of progress, but 
it is a regulated freedom, a progress by slow degrees. 
He praises England as the land where ''a man may 
speak the thing he will," and he is republican enough 
to demand that the throne shall be "broad-based upon 
the people's will," but he has a dread of too much ora- 
tory and but slight confidence in the people at large — 

"wild heart and feeble wings 
That every sophister can lime.'' 



46 INTRODUCTION 

He constantly deprecates ''raw haste." There 
must be change, but it should come ''nor swift, nor 
slow." Each new thought should "ingroove itself" 
with the thought it displaces. He loves "the storied 
past," the "wisdom of a thousand years," ideas "by 
degrees to fulness wrought," a settled government 
where freedom "broadens slowly down from prec- 
edent to precedent." "Be not precipitate in thine 
act of steering," is his advice to the statesman. 
No political topic taken up by Tennyson has 
occasioned more controversy than his attitude 
towards war. Certainly in Maud war is made the 
cure for hysterical passion on the part of the indi- 
vidual and sordid commercialism on the part of the 
nation. Nor can the flaming eulogy of "the blood- 
red blossom of war" be set aside as merely a dramatic 
utterance of his hero. It is a better defense to say 
that Tennyson praises war only as the lesser of two 
evils. He praises it in contrast to "a peace full of 
wrongs and shames, horrible, hateful, monstrous." 
In a later poem he presents peace as the ideal. In 
the epilogue to The Charge of the Heavy Brigade he 



"And who loves war for war's own sake 
Is fool, or crazed, or worse,*' 

And again in the same poem, 

"I would that wars should cease, 
I would the globe from end to end 
Might sow and reap in peace." 

Tennyson's greatest patriotic poems are those that 
leave the theory of statecraft and celebrate some 



LEADING IDEAS IN TENNYSON'S POEMS 47 

English hero. The splendid swinging rhythm of 
The Revenge and the noble commemoration of Wel- 
lington and incidentally of Nelson in the Ode on the 
Death of Welli7igton show to what heights he could 
rise when love of England and pride in heroic deeds 
of Englishmen were his inspiration. 

A marked characteristic of Tennyson's poetry is its 
recognition of the scientific thought of the day. It 
had long been a sort of literary conyention to gibe at 
science as the enemy of the imagination and so of 
literature. Some of the cleverest flings in Dryden 
and in Pope have to do with the ''virtuosi" of their 
respective periods. Even Wordsworth has some 
contemptuous lines on the "wandering herbalist" 
and the self-complacent astronomer who flattered 
himself that he could weigh the heavens in the hollow 
of his hands. But in another passage Wordsworth 
describes poetly as "the impassioned expression which 
is in the countenance of all science," and prophesies 
that the day will come when the remotest facts of 
science will be so a part of common consciousness as 
to enter naturally into poetry. To a certain degree 
Tennyson realized this prophecy. Especially was 
this true in astronomy. The work of the elder 
Herschel belongs in the years 1773-1822, and his dis- 
coveries deeply affected Tennyson even as a child. 
When he was a boy an elder brother expressed 
some shyness at the thought of an approaching 
dinner party. "Oh," said Alfred, "think of 
Herschel's great star patches and you will soon 
get over all that." And throughout his life 



48 INTRODUCTION 

the facts of astronomy especially stirred his imag- 
ination. 

"And the suns of the limitless universe sparkled and shone 

in the sky." 

**While the silent Heavens roll, and suns along their fiery 
way, 
All their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles 
a day/^ 

''Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms 
Of Sims, and starry streams.'' 

are typical lines'. It is worthy of note also that he 
almost always speaks of stars by their names, as in 
this evening picture in Maud: 

''When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, 
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer 
And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns 
Over Orion's grave low down in the west." 

The discovery of starlight in interstellar spaces, 

the idea of an all-pervading luminiferous ether, 

greatly excited him. But he studied with almost 

equal enthusiasm the great facts of chemistry, 

geology, botany, whatever, indeed, seemed to reveal 

the mysteries and the laws of the universe. The 

doctrine of evolution he of course accepted, although 

he always insisted that ''the Darwinians exaggerated 

Darwinism." His poetical reference to evolution 

in In Memoriam CX VIII, ends in a bit of didacticism : 

"Arise and fly 
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; 
Move upward, working out the beast, 
And let the ape and tiger die," 

a lesson nobly expanded later in The Evolutionist. 

From the beginning to the end of his work as a 
poet Tennyson concerned himself with questions 



LEADING IDEAS IN TENNYSON'S POEMS 49 

relating to the conduct of life. '^Art for art's sake" 
was a watchword that aroused his utmost indignation. 
Wordsworth had said, *'I wish to be regarded as a 
teacher or as nothing," and Tennyson, in spite of 
his almost undue attention to questions of form, had 
at the foundation a similar ethical impulse. The 
early poems, The Poet and Tlie Poefs Mind^ show 
his conception of the poet as one whose inspiration 
is a ''song of undying love" drawn from heaven 
itself, whose dower is an impassioned ''love of love" 
and a deep knowledge of the mind of man and the 
will of God, whose search is for wisdom, and whose 
mission is to fling abroad the winged shafts of truth. 
We should, then, expect to find in Tennyson many 
poems of ethical, religious, or political import. 

In the brief space here at command only a few of 
the poems on religious themes can be spoken of. 
One important series has to do with the question of 
immortality. The Tioo Voices^ a discussion of the 
question "Is life worth living?" was born out of the 
mood of despair following Arthur Hallam's death. 
The negative voice would have the best of the argu- 
ment were it not for the poet's belief in immortality, 
a belief based not on argument, but on "a heat of 
inward evidence," a mysterious premonition of 
Eternity, a hint of perfection beyond imperfection. 
Breaks Ireah^ hreah^ written also in 1833, is a 
lyrical expression of the poet's sense of supreme and 
utter loss. It is interesting to compare it with All 
Along the Valley^ written twenty-eight years later 
in commemoration of the friendship with Arthur 



50 INTRODUCTION 

Hallam. '*^The tender grace of a day that is dead 
will never come back to me," is the motif of thi 
first poem, while in the second we read, "The voic^ 
of the dead is a living voice to me." In this secon 
poem the poet has in some way regained his friend.] 
Between these lyrics comes hi Me^noriam. Although' 
the one hundred and thirty-one "elegies" of which 
it is composed were written at intervals during a 
period of seventeen years the notes of time in 
the poem show that it describes a period of but 
two years and seven months. The separate songs 
are of the utmost artistic loveliness. The poem has 
also the intimate charm of a personal revelation. 
But above all, it is the history of a soul in its con- 
flict with the loss occasioned by death, and the theme 
is therefore universal. The distinction of the poem 
is that the outcome is one not only of resignation 
but of positive happiness. From selfish absorption 
in a hopeless grief the poet emerges into a sense of 
new and very real union here with his friend, and 
into a belief in immortal union with those we love. 
Tennyson's belief in immortality was uttered over 
and over. He said to Bishop Lightfoot, "The 
cardinal point in Christianity is the Life after 
Death." To his son he said, "I can hardly under- 
stand how any great imaginative man, who has 
deeply lived, suffered, thought, and wrought, can 
doubt of the soul's continuous progress in the after- 
life." One of the poems he especially liked to quote 
on this topic was Wag^s^ the closing lines of which 
are: 



d 

I 



LEADING IDEAS IN TENNYSON'S POEMS 51 

'The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, 
Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and 
the fly? 

She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, 
To rest in a golden grove, or bask in a summer sky: 
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die/' 

Crossing the Bar is the last clear, lovely word of 
serene conviction on the subject of immortality. 

On other great questions of spiritual import 
Tennyson expressed himself as definitely though not 
so fully. Concerning the close relation possible 
between man and God we read in The Higher 
Pantheism^ a poem of his mature life, 

''Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit 

can meet. 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and 

feet." 

Of the freedom of the will he says, in De Pro- 
fundis^ that impassioned and highly imaginative 
greeting to his first child, 

"This main-miracle that thou art thou, 
With power on thine own act and on the world." 

Of the contest between good and evil in one's own 
nature and the possible final supremacy of the good, 
we have the high-minded and courageous lines from 
By an Evolutionist^ written when the poet was eighty 
years of age, and summing up at once a theory and 
a personal experience : 

"If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than 

their own, 
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice 

be mute? 
No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the 

throne 



52 INTRODUCTION 

Hold the sceptre, human soul, and rule thy province 
of the brute. 
I have climbed to the snows of age, and I gaze at a field 
in the past, 
Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of 
a low desire. 
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the man is quiet at 
last 
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of 
a height that is higher." 

Of poems that have more strictly to do with the 
conduct of life only a few can be cited. Tlie Vision 
of Sin portrays the physical breakdown and the 
brutal cynicism of an old age following a life of 
sensual pleasure. St. Simeon Stylites represents the 
lowest form of asceticism. St. Simeon shows remark- 
able persistence and power of endurance, and his 
desire is for the crown promised to the faithful. 
But we see him proud of his martyrdom, grasping 
after spiritual glory, petty, jealous, essentially an 
gegoist. Hence his riid mastery of the body fails to 
secure spiritual exaltation. Tlie Palace of Art 
represents the sin and suffering of a soul that for the 
sake of absorption in the highest intellectual and 
aesthetic satisfaction isolates herself from the world. 
The riddle of the painful earth is not her concern. 
The common people are to her but swine who may 
graze and wallow and breed and sleep as they choose. 
But the beauty of her lordly pleasure-house, her 
intellectual preeminence, her steady communication 
with the noblest minds as they have "revealed them- 
selves in music, pictures, and books, fail after a time 
to please her. Her selfish determination to find 
individual satisfaction for what she calls her higher 



LEADING IDEAS IN TENNYSON'S POEMS 53 

nature results in satiety, self-loathing, and an 
unbearable loneliness. Her regeneration is complete 
when she throws ofif her royal robes of selfish egoism 
and puts herself into relation with the simplest 
human life. She finally learns that personal attain- 
ments come to their highest possible value only 
when shared by others. These three poems were 
in the volume of 1842, and they constitute a kind 
of trilogy of human experience in the realm of sin. 
Each poem represents a mistaken pursuit of satisfac- 
tion, whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual. 

The three characters just mentioned were frankly 
typical or allegorical. And Tennyson's didacticism 
very often led him to the creation of ^types rather 
than of individuals. The Holy Grail is a series of 
character studies of knights who go forth in quest 
of the Holy Grail. Most of them fail or but partially 
succeed, and each knight stands as typical of classes 
of people who similarly fail in the search for spiritual 
exaltation. Sir Gawain, for instance, was easily 
diverted from the quest, as shallow, worldly-minded, 
luxury-loving people are always diverted. Sir 
Lancelot fails because there is strife in his soul 
between the holiness he longs for and the] sin he 
cherishes. His. vision of the Grail is only in its 
aspect of wrath and condemnation, and it leaves him 
"blasted and burnt and blinded." Of the other 
knights. Sir Percivale is the most interesting as a 
well worked out type. He fails at first because of 
proud confidence in his own strength; then, with 
sudden change of mood, because of undue absorption 



54 INTRODUCTION 

in his own un worthiness; then because he thinks to 
slake his thirst for holiness in the beauty of nature, 
in domestic lo^e, earthly glory, popular applause. 
In the realm of religion The Holy Grail finally 
teaches the same lesson as The Palace of Art in the 
realm of the intellect. Both poems put into concrete 
form the social creed in Tennyson's Ode Simg at the 
Openi7ig of the International Exhibition^ where he 
says that each man should, 

'^find his own in all men's good, 
And all men work in noble brotherhood." 

No quest for intellectual or spiritual vision is 
sound at the heart if divorced from daily life. King 
Arthur sums tlie matter up when he says that the 
most exalted and trustworthy visions come to the 
man doing his work ^'in the space of land allotted 
him to plow." 

It is on subjects that have to do with religious 
faith and with human conduct that Tennyson has 
done his greatest work. He began writing in a 
light, uncertain, dilettante fashion, but as he came 
into a consciousness of himself his themes broadened 
and deepened until finally his genius was soberly 
and deliberately set to discuss fundamental and 
universal human problems, and these he met in a 
spirit of frankness and fairness that kept him in 
touch with the foremost scientists of his day, and 
yet with a final definiteness of faith that made his 
poetry the support of many whose own faith had 
proved less steadfast. And in all matters of practical 
conduct his poems consistently held up noble ideals. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The mass of critical and biographical material 
concerning Lord Tennyson and his works is such as 
to preclude the possibility of giving here a complete 
bibliography. The books given below are chosen 
because they will probably be easily accessible and 
because they are especially suggestive in connection 
with the poems included in the present volume. 
For biographical material, see chiefly: 
Alfred^ Lord Tennyson^ a Memoir by His Son, 
2 vols. [Macmillan, 1899]. A brief sketch, with 
many very interesting illustrations, is found in the 
series of Boohnan Biographies^ edited by W. Eobert- 
son NicoU [Hodder & Stoughton, London]. The 
volume on Tennyson is by G. K. Chesterton and 
Dr. Richard Garnett [1903]. 

For general criticism, see the following books : 
Illustrations of Tennyson^ by J. Ohurton Collins 
[Chatto & Windus, 1891], is chiefly a study of Lord 
Tennyson's Greek and Latin sources. A Handbook 
to the Works of Alfred^ Lord Tennyson^ by Morton 
Luce [Geo. Bell & Sons, 1895]. A Study of the 
Works of Tennyson^ by Edward C. Tainsh [Mac- 
millan, 1893], The Poetry of Tennyson [Charles 
Scribner^s Sons, tenth edition, 1898] and Poems hy 
Tennyson [Athenseum Press Series, 1903], by Henry 
van Dyke. Tennyson: His Art and Relation to 
Modern Life^ Stopford Brooke [G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, 1903]. 

55 



56 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

For studies of special poems, see the following : 

Studies in the Idylls by Henry Elsdale [Kegan 
Paul, 1878] has to do especially with the allegory 
of the Idylls. Essays on Lord Tennyson^ s Idylls of 
the King by Harold Littledale [Macmillan, 1893] 
treats of the sources of the Idylls and has much 
valuable textual comment. Studies in the Arthu- 
rian Legend by John Rhys [Clarendon Press, 1891], 
and Tennyso7i^s Idylls of the King and Arthurian 
Story from the 16th Century by M. W. MacOallum 
[MacLehose, 1894] are studies in the sources and 
the development of the Idylls, 

Of the many special studies of In Memoriam the 
review by Mr. Gladstone [Gleanings from Past 
YearSj Vol. II, pp. 136-7, quoted in Alfred, Lord 
Ten7iyso7iy A Memoir by His Son] was, in Tenny- 
son's opinion, one of the ablest that appeared. A 
Companion to In Memoriam, Mrs. Elizabeth R. Chap- 
man [Macmillan, 1888] is spoken of in the Memoir 
of Tennyson as the ''best analysis" of the poem. 
An elaborate study of the poem is to be found in 
Tennyson^ s In Memoriam: Its Purpose and Structure 
by John F. Genung [Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899]. 

For The Princess, see A Study of the Princess, 
S. B. Dawson [Dawson Brothers, Montreal, 1882] 
which Tennyson himself thought to be an able and 
thoughtful review. 

There are also very many essays and magazine 
articles in the way of personal recollections, liter- 
ary appreciations, interpretations, and comparative 
studies. 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

GARETH AND LYNETTE 

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, 
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring 
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine 
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirl'd away. 

5 *'Howhe went down," said Gareth, '* as a false knight 
Or evil king before my lance if lance 
Were mine to use — senseless cataract, 
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy — 
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows 

10 And mine is living blood: thou dost His will. 
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know, 
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall 
Linger with vacillating obedience, 
Prison'd, and kept and coax'd and whistled to — 

13 Since the good mother holds me still a child! 
Good mother is bad mother unto me ! 
A worse were better; yet no worse would L 
Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force 
To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, 

20 Until she let me fly discaged to sweep 
In ever-highering eagle-circles up 
To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop 
Down upon all things base, and dash them dead, 
A knight of Arthur, working out his will, 

57 



58 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came 25 

With Modred hither in the summer-time, 

Ask'd me to tilt with him, the proven knight. 

Modred for want of worthier was the judge. 

Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, 

'Thou hast half prevail'd against me,' said so — he — 30 

Tho' Modred biting his thin lips was mute, 

For he is alway sullen: what care I?" 

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair 
Ask'd, ''Mother, tho' ye count me still the child. 
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?" She laugh'd, 35 
"Thou art but a wild-goose to question it." 
"Then, mother, and ye love the child," he said, 
"Being a goose and rather tame than wild. 
Hear the child's story." "Yea, my well-beloved, 
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs. " 40 

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes, 
"Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine 
Was finer gold than any goose can lay ; 
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid 
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm 45 

As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. 
And there was ever haunting round the palm 
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw 
The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought 
'An I could climb and lay my hand upon it, 50 

Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings. ' 
But ever when he reach'd a hand to climb. 
One that had loved him from his childhood, caught 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 59 

And stay'd him, * Climb not lest thou break thy neck, 
55 I charge thee by my love, ' and so the boy, 

Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his neck. 
And brake his very heart in pining for it, 
And past away." 

To whom the mother said, 
*'True love, sweet son, had risk'd himself and 
climb'd, 
60 And handed down the golden treasure to him." 

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes, 
*'Gold? said I gold? — ay then, why he, or she, 
Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world 
Had ventured — had the thing I spake of been 

65 Mere gold — but this was all of that true steel, 
Whereof they forged the brand Excalibur, 
And lightnings play'd about it in the storm. 
And all the little fov/1 were flurried at it. 
And there were cries and clashings in the nest, 

70 That sent him from his senses: let me go." 

Then Bellicent bemoan'd herself and said, 
*'Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness? 
Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth 
Lies like a log, and all but smoulder'd out! 
75 For ever since when traitor to the King 
He fought against him in the Barons' war. 
And Arthur gave him back his territory. 
His age hath slowly droopt, and now lies there 
A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable, 



60 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

No more; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows, so 

And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall, 

Albeit neither loved with that full love 

I feel for thee, nor worthy such a love : 

Stay therefore thou ; red berries charm the bird, 

And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars, 85 

Who never knewest finger-ache, nor pang 

Of wrench'd or broken limb — an often chance 

In those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls. 

Frights to my heart ; but stay : follow the deer 

By these tall firs and our fast-falling burns ; 90 

So make thy manhood mightier day by day ; 

Sweet is the chase : and I will seek thee out 

Some comfortable bride and fair, to grace 

Thy climbing life, and cherish my prone year, 

Till falling into Lot's forge tfulness 95 

I know not thee, myself, nor anything. 

Stay, my best son! ye are yet more boy than man." 

Then Gareth, '*An ye hold me yet for child, 
Hear yet once more the story of the child. 
For, mother, there was once a King, like ours. 100 

The prince his heir, when tall and marriageable, 
Ask'd for a bride; and thereupon the King 
Set two before him. One was fair, strong, arm'd — ,. 
But to be won by force — ^^and many men f ' 

Desired her; one, good lack, no man desired. 105 

And these were the conditions of the King : 
That save he won the first by force, he needs 
Must wed that other, whom no man desired, 
A red-faced bride who knew herself so vile, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 61 

10 That evermore she long'd to hide herself, 
Nor fronted man or woman, eye to eye — 
Yea— some she cleaved to, but they died of her. 
And one — they call'd her Fame ; and one, — mother, 
How can ye keep me tether'd to you — Shame. 

15 Man am I grown, a man's work must I do. 
Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King, 

I Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King — 

I Else, wherefore born?" 

To whom the mother said, 
**Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, 

20 Or will not deem him, wholly proven King — 
Albeit in mine own heart I knew him King, 
When I was frequent with him in my youth. 
And heard him Kingly speak, and doubted him 
No more than he, himself ; but felt him mine, 

25 Of closest kin to me : yet — wilt thou leave 
Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all. 
Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King? 
Stay, till the cloud that settles round his birth 
Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son." 

And Gareth answer'd quickly, *'Not an hour. 
So that ye yield me — I will walk thro' fire, 
Mother, to gain it — your full leave to go. 
Not proven, who swept the dust of ruin'd Eome 
From off the threshold of the realm, and crush'd 
5 The Idolaters, and made the people free? 
Who should be King save him who makes us 
free?'* 



62 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

So when the Queen, who long had sought in vain 
To break him from the intent to which he grew, 
Found her son's will unwaveringly one. 
She answer 'd craftily, "Will ye walk thro' fire? ho 

Who walks thro' fire will hardly heed the smoke. 
Ay, go then, an ye must : only one proof, 
Before thou ask the King to make thee knight, 
Of thine obedience and thy love to me, 
Thy mother, — I demand." 145 

And Gareth cried, 
"A hard one, or a hundred, so I go. 
Nay — quick! the proof to prove me to the quick!" 

But slowly spake the mother looking at him, 
"Prince, thou shalt go disguised to Arthur's hall, 
And hire thyself to serve for meats and drinks i5o . 

Among the scullions and the kitchen-knaves, s 

And those that hand the dish across the bar. 
Nor shalt thou tell thy name to any one. 
And thou shalt serve a twelvemonth and a day." 

For so the Queen believed that when her son 155 

Beheld his only way to glory lead 
Low down thro' villain kitchen-vassalage. 
Her own true Gareth was too princely-proud 
To pass thereby ; so should he rest with her. 
Closed in her castle from the sound of arms. m 

Silent awhile was Gareth, then replied, 
"The thrall in person may be free in soul, | 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 03 

And I shall see the jousts. Thy son am I, 
And since thou art my mother, must obey. 
65 I therefore yield me freely to thy will; 
For hence will I, disguised, and hire myself 
To serve with scullions and with kitchen-knaves; 
Nor tell my name to any — no, not the King." 

Gareth awhile linger'd. The mother's eye 
70 Full of the wistful fear that he would go. 
And turning toward him wheresoe'er he turn'd, 
Perplext his outward purpose, till an hour. 
When waken'd by the wind which with full voice 
Swept bellowing thro' the darkness on to dawn, 
7b He rose, and out of slumber calling two 
That still had tended on him from his birth. 
Before the wakeful mother heard him, went. 

The three were clad like tillers of the soil. 
Southward they set their faces. The birds made 
JO Melody on branch, and melody in mid air. 
The damp hill-slopes were quicken 'd into green, 
And the live green had kindled into flowers, 
For it was past the time of Easterday. 

So, when their feet were planted on the plain 
;5 That broaden'd toward the base of Camelot, 

Far off they saw the silver-misty morn 
' Rolling her smoke about the Royal mount. 

That rose between the forest and the field. 

At times the summit of the high city flash'd; 
At times the spires and turrets half-way down 



64 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

PrickM thro' the mist; at times the great gate shone 
Only, that open'd on the field below: 
Anon, the whole fair city had disappear'd. 

Then those who went with Gareth were amazed, 
One crying, ''Let us go no further, lord. m 

Here is a city of Enchanters, built 
By fairy Kings." The second echo'd him, 
"Lord, we have heard from our wise man at home 
To Northward, that this King is not the King, 
But only changeling out of Fairyland, 26^^ 

Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery 
And Merlin's glamour." Then the first again, 
"Lord, there is no such city anywhere, 
But all a vision." 

Gareth answer'd them 
With laughter, swearing he had glamour enow 
In his own blood, his princedom, youth and hopes, 
To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; 
So push'd them all unwilling toward the gate. 
And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined 2k 

And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave. 
The Lady of the Lake stood : all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away; 
But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
Stretch'd under all the cornice and upheld: 
And drops of water fell from either hand ; 
And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
A censer, either worn with wind and storm ; 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 65 

And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish; 

220 And in the space to left of her, and right, 
Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, 
New things and old co-twisted, as if Time 
Were nothing, so inveterately, that men 
Were giddy gazing there ; and over all 

225 High on the top were those three Queens, the friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need. 

Then those with Gareth for so long a space 
Stared at the figures, that at last it seem'd 
The dragon-boughts and elvish emblemings 
230 Began to move, seethe, twine and curl: they call'd 
To Gareth, ''Lord, the gateway is alive." 

And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes 
So long, that ev'n to him they seem'd to move. 
Out of the city a blast of music peal'd. 
'235 Back from the gate started the three, to whom 
From out thereunder came an ancient man. 
Long-bearded, saying, ''Who be ye, my sons?" 

Then Gareth, "We be tillers of the soil. 
Who leaving share in furrow come to see 

240 The glories of our King : but these, my men, 
(Your city moved so weirdly in the mist) 
Doubt if the King be King at all, or come 
From Fairyland ; and whether this be built 
By magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens ; 

245 Or whether there be any city at all. 
Or all a vision : and this music now 
Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth. " 



66 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Then that old Seer made answer playing on him 
And saying, "Son, I have seen the good ship sail 
Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens, 250 
And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air : 
And here is truth ; but an it please thee not, 
Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. 
For truly as thou sayest, a Fairy King 
And Fairy Queens have built the city, son; 21 

They came from out a sacred mountain-cleft 
Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, 
And built it to the music of their harps. 
And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son, 
For there is nothing in it as it seems 2< 

Saving the King; tho' some there be that hold 
The King a shadow, and the city real : 
Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass 
Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become 
A thrall to his enchantments, for the King 2( 

Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame 
A man should not be bound by, yet the which 
No man can keep; but, so thou dread to swear, 
Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide 
Without, among the cattle of the field. 2- 

For an ye heard a music, like enow 
They ar^ building still, seeing the city is built 
To music, therefore never built at all, 
And therefore built for ever.'' 

Gareth spake 
Anger'd, "Old Master, reverence thine own beard 2- 
That looks as white as utter truth, and seems 



GARETH AND LYNETTE G7 

Wellnigh as long as thou art statured tall ! 
Why mockest thou the stranger that hath been 
To thee fair-spoken?" 

But the Seer replied, 
180 ''Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards? 

'Confusion, and illusion, and relation, 

Elusion, and occasion, and evasion'? 

I mock thee not but as thou mockest me, 

And all that see thee, for thou art not who 
«5 Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art. 

And now thou goest up to mock the King, 
' Who cannot brook the shadow of any lie." 

Unmockingly the mocker ending here 

Ttirn'd to the right, and past along the plain; 
90 Whom Gareth looking after said, "My men, 
' Our one white lie sits like a little ghost 

Here on the threshold of our enterprise. 

Let love be blamed for it, not she, nor I : 

Well, we will make amends." 

With all good cheer 
'95 He spake and laugh'd, then enter'd with his twain 

Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces 

And stately, rich in emblem and the work 

Of ancient kings who did their days in stone ; 

Which Merlin's hand, the Mage at Arthur's court, 
X) Knowing all arts, had touch'd, and everywhere 

At Arthur's ordinance, tipt with lessening peak 
' And pinnacle, and had made it spire to heaven. 

And ever and anon a knight would pass 



68 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Outward, or inward to the hall: his arms 

Clash'd; and the sound was good to Gareth's ear. 305 

And out of bower and casement shyly glanced 

Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars of love; 

And all about a healthful people stept 

As in the presence of a gracious king. 



ii 



Then into hall Gareth ascending heard 310 

A voice, the voice of Arthur, and beheld 
Far over heads in that long-vaulted hall 
The splendour of the presence of the King 
Throned, and delivering doom — and look'd no more — 
But felt his young heart hammering in his ears, 315 

And thought, "For this half -shadow of a lie 
The truthful King will doom me when I speak." 
Yet pressing on, tho' all in fear to find 
Sir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor one 
Nor other, but in all the listening eyes 330 

Of those tall knights, that ranged about the throne. 
Clear honour shining like the dewy star 
Of dav/n, and faith in their great King, with pure 
Affection, and the light of victory, 
x\nd glory gain'd, and evermore to gain. 335 

Then came a widow crying to the King, 
''A boon. Sir King! Thy father, Uther, reft 
From my dead lord a field with violence : 
For howsoe'er at first he proffer'd gold. 
Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, 330 

We yielded not ; and then he reft us of it 
Perforce, and left us neither gold nor field." 



I GARETH AND LYNETTE 69 

Said Arthur, ''Whether would ye? gold or field?" 
To whom the woman weeping, ''Nay, my lord, 
335 The field was pleasant in my husband's eye." 

And Arthur, "Have thy pleasant field again. 
And thrice the gold for Uther's use thereof. 
According to the years. No boon is here, 
But justice, so thy say be proven true. 
340 Accursed, who from the wrongs his father did 
Would shape himself a right!" 

And while she past. 
Came yet another widow crying to him, 
"A boon, Sir King! Thine enemy. King, am I. 
With thine own hand thou slewest my dear lord, 

545 A knight of Uther in the Barons' war. 

When Lot and many another rose and fought 
Against thee, saying thou wert basely born, 
I held with these, and loathe to ask thee aught. 
Yet lo! my husband's brother had my son 

350 Thrall'd in his castle, and hath starved him dead; 
And standeth seized of that inheritance 
Which thou that slewest the sire hast left the son. 
So tho' I scarce can ask it thee for hate. 
Grant me some knight to do the battle for me, 

856 Kill the foul thief, and wreak me for my son.'' 

Then strode a good knight forward, crying to 
him, 
"A boon, Sir King! I am her kinsman, I. 
Give me to right her wrong, and slay the man." 



70 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Then came Sir Kay, the seneschal, and cried, 
*'A boon. Sir King! ev'n that thon grant her none, sgo 
This railer, that hath mock'd thee in full hall — 
None; or the wholesome boon of gyve and gag." 

But Arthur, "We sit King, to help the wrong'd 
Thro' all our realm. The woman loves her lord. 
Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and hates! 385 
The kings of old had doom'd thee to the flames, 
Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee dead. 
And Uther slit thy tongue: but get thee hence — 
Lest that rough humour of the kings of old 
Eeturn upon me ! Thou that art her kin, 370 

Go likewise ; lay him low and slay him not. 
But bring him here, that I may judge the right. 
According to the justice of the King: 
Then, be he guilty, by that deathless Kiug 
Who lived and died for men, the man shall die." 375 

Then came in hall the messenger of Mark, 
A name of evil savour in the land, 
The Cornish king. In either hand ho bore 
What dazzled all, and shone far-off as shines 
A field of charlock in the sudden sun sso 

Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, 
Which down he laid before the throne, and knelt. 
Delivering, that his lord, the vassal king. 
Was ev'n upon his way to Camelot; 
For having heard that Arthur of his grace 385 

Had made his goodly cousin, Tristram, knight. 
And, for himself was of the greater state, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 71 

Being a king, he trusted his liege-lord 
Would yield him this large honour all the more; 
390 So pray'd him well to accept this cloth of gold, 
In token of true heart and fealty. 

Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to rend 
In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth. 
An oak-tree smoulder 'd there. ''The goodly knight ! 

395 What! shall the shield of Mark stand among these?" 
For, midway down the side of that long hall 
A stately pile, — whereof along the front. 
Some blazon'd, some but carven, and some blank, 
There ran a treble range of stony shields, — 

100 Eose, and high-arching overbrow'd the hearth. 
And under every shield a knight was named: 
For this was Arthur's custom in his hall ; 
When some good knight had done one noble deed. 
His arms were carven only; but if twain 

105 His arms were blazon'd also; but if none. 
The shield was blank and bare without a sign 
Saving the name beneath ; and Gareth saw 
The shield of Gawain blazon'd rich and bright, 
And Modred's blank as death ; and Arthur cried 

no To rend the cloth and cast it on the hearth. 

"More like are we to reave him of his crown 
Than make him knight because men call him 

king. 
The kings we found, ye know wo stay'd their hands 
From war among themselves, but left them kings; 
15 Of whom were any bounteous, merciful, 



72 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, them we enrolled 

Among us, and they sit within our hall. 

But Mark hath tarnish'd the great name of king, 

As Mark would sully the low state of churl : 

And, seeing he hath sent us cloth of gold, 420 

Return, and meet, and hold him from our eyes. 

Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead, 

Silenced for ever — craven — a man of plots. 

Crafts, poisonous counsels, wayside ambushings — 

No fault of thine : let Kay the seneschal 

Look to thy wants, and send thee satisfied — 

Accursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be seen!'^ 

And many another suppliant crying came 

With noise of ravage wrought by beast and man. 

And evermore a knight would ride away. 430 

Last, Gareth leaning both hands heavily 
Down on the shoulders of the twain, his men, i 

Approach'd between them toward the King, and 

ask'd, 
''A boon. Sir King (his voice was all ashamed), 
For see ye not how weak and hungerworn 43:^ 

I seem — leaning on these? grant me to servo 
For meat and drink among thy kitchen-knaves 
A twelvemonth and a day, nor seek my name. 
Hereafter I will fight." 

To him the King, 
'^A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon! 44c | 

But so thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay, 
The master of the meats and drinks, be thine." 




GARETH AND LYNETTE 73 

He rose and past ; then Kay, a man of mien 
Wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself 
445 Root-bitten by white lichen, 

''Loyenow! 
This fellow hath broken from some Abbey, where, 
God wot, he had not beef and brewis enow, 
However that might chance! but an he work. 
Like any pigeon will I cram his crop, 
430 And sleeker shall he shine than any hog." 

Then Lancelot standing near, ''Sir Seneschal, 
Sleuth-hound thou knowest, and gray, and all the 

hounds : 
A horse thou knowest, a man thou dost not know ; 
Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine, 
455 High nose, a nostril large and fine, and hands 

Large, fair and fine ! — Some young lad's mystery — 
But, or from sheepcot or king's hall, the boy 
Is noble-natured. Treat him with all grace. 
Lest he should come to shame thy judging of 

him." 

460 Then Kay, ''What murmurest thou of mystery? 
Think ye this fellow will poison the King's dish? 
Nay, for he spake too fool-like : mystery ! 
Tut, an the lad were noble, he had ask'd 
For horse and armour : fair and fine, forsooth ! 

465 Sir Fine-face, Sir Fair-hands? but see thou to it 
That thine own fineness, Lancelot, some fine day 
Undo thee not — and leave my man to me." 



74 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

So Gareth all for glory underwent 
The sooty yoke of kitchen -vassalage ; 
Ate with young lads his portion by the door, 470 

And couch 'd at night with grimy kitchen-knaves. 
And Lancelot ever spake him pleasantly. 
But Kay the seneschal, who loved him not. 
Would hustle and harry him, and labour him 
Beyond his comrade of the hearth, and set 475 

To turn the broach, draw water, or hew wood, 
Or grosser tasks; and Gareth bow'd himself 
With all obedience to the King, and wrought 
All kind of service with a noble ease 
That graced the lowliest act in doing it. 48o 

And when the thralls had talk among themselves, 
And one would praise the love that linkt the Kiug 
And Lancelot — how the King had saved his life 
In battle twice, and Lancelot once the King's — 
For Lancelot was the first in Tournament, 485 

But Arthur mightiest on the battle-field — 
Gareth was glad. Or if some other told, 
How once the wandering forester at dawn, 
Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas. 
On Caer-Eryri's highest found the King, 490 

A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake, 
*'He passes to the Isle Avilion, 
He passes and is heal'd and cannot die" — 
Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul, 
Then would he whistle rapid as any lark, 490 

Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud 
That first they mock'd, but, after, reverenced him. 
Or Gareth telling some prodigious tale 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 75 

Of knights, who sliced a red life-bubbling way 
m Thro' twenty folds of twisted dragon, held 
All in a gap-mouth'd circle his good mates 
Lying or sitting round him, idle hands, 
Charm'd; till Sir Kay. the seneschal, would come 
Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind 
06 Among dead leaves, and drive them all apart. 
Or when the thralls had sport among themselves, 
So there were any trial of mastery, 
He, by two yards in casting bar or stone 
Was counted best; and if there chanced a joust, 
10 So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go. 

Would hurry thither, and when he saw the knights 
Clash like the coming and retiring wave. 
And the spear spring, and good horse reel, the boy 
Was half beyond himself for ecstasy. 

15 So for a month he wrought among the thralls; 
But in the weeks that foUow'd, the good Queen, 
Eepentant of the word she made him swear. 
And saddening in her childless castle, sent, 
l^etween the in-crescent and de-crescent moon, 

JO Arms for her son, and loosed him from his vow. 

This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot 
With whom he used to play at tourney once, 
When both were children, and in lonely haunts 
Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, 
5 And each at either dash from either end- 
Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. 
lie laugh 'd; ho sprang. ''Out of the smoke, at once 



76 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee — 
These news be mine, none other's— nay, the King's — 
Descend into the city:" whereon he sought 53{ 

The King alone, and found, and told him all. 

*'I have stagger 'd thy strong Gawain in a tilt 
For pastime ; yea, he said it : Joust can I. 
Make me thy knight — in secret ! let my name 
Be hidd'n, and give me the first quest, I spring 63^ 

Like flame from ashes." 

Here the King's calm eye 
Fell on, and check'd, and made him flush, and bow 
Lowly, to kiss his hand, who answer'd him, 
'^Son, the good mother let me know thee here, 
And sent her wish that I would yield thee thine. 54c 
Make thee my knight? my knights are sworn to vows 
Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness. 
And, loving, utter faithfulness in love. 
And uttermost obedience to the King." 

Then Gareth, lightly springing from his knees, hit 
''My King, for hardihood I can promise thee. 
For uttermost obedience make demand 
Of whom ye gave me to, the Seneschal, 
No mellow master of the meats and drinks ! 
And as for love, God wot, I love not yet, kc 

But love I shall, God willing." 

And the King — 
"Make thee my knight in secret? yea, but he, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 77 

Our noblest brother, and our truest man, 
And one with me in all, he needs must know." 

^ "Let Lancelot know, my King, let Lancelot know, 
Thy noblest and thy truest!" 

And the King — 
''But wherefore would ye men should wonder at 

you? 
Nay, rather for the sake of me, their King, 
And the deed's sake my knighthood do the deed, 
30 Than to be noised of." 

Merrily Gareth ask'd, 
*'Have I not earn'd my cake in baking of it? 
Let be my name until I make my name ! 
My deeds will speak: it is but for a day." 
So with a kindly hand on Gareth's arm 

56 Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly 
Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him. 
Then, after summoning Lancelot privily, 

■ "I have given him the first quest: he is not proven. 
Look therefore when he calls for this in hall, 

ro Thou get to horse and follow him far away. 
Cover the lions on thy shield, and see 
Par as thou mayest, he be nor ta'en nor slain." 

i 

Then that same day there past into the hall 
A damsel of high lineage, and a brow 
r5 May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom. 
Hawk-eyes ; and lightly was her slender nose 



78 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower ; 

She into hall past with her page and cried, 

''0 King, for thou hast driven the foe without, 
See to the foe within! bridge, ford, beset 58o 

By bandits, everyone that owns a tower 
The Lord for half a league. Why sit ye there? 
East Y/ould I not, Sir King, an I were king. 
Till ev'n the lonest hold were all as free 
From cursed bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth 585 

From that best blood it is a sin to spill." 

'^Comfort thyself," said Arthur, ''I nor mine 
Eest: so my knighthood keep the vows they swore, 
The wastest moorland of our realm shall be 
Safe, damsel, as the centre of this hall. 590 

What is thy name? thy need?" 

"My name?" she said — 
^'Lynette my name; noble; my need, a knight 
To combat for my sister, L}^onors, 
A lady of high lineage, of great lands, 
And comely, yea, and comelier than myself. f'O^ 

She lives in Castle Perilous: a river 
Runs in three loops about her living place; 
And o'er it are three passings, and three knights 
Defend the passings, brethren, and a fourth 
And of that four the mightiest, holds her stayed eoo 
In her own castle, and so besieges her 
'i'o break her will, and make her wed with him: 
And but delays his purport till thou send 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 79 

To do the battle with him, thy chief man 
cos Sir Lancelot whom he trusts to overthrow, 
Then wed, with glory: but she will not wed 
Save whom she loveth, or a holy life. 
Now therefore have I come for Lancelot." 

Then Arthur mindful of Sir Gareth ask'd, 
510 '* Damsel, ye know this Order lives to crush 
All wrongers of the Eealm. But say, these four, 
Who be they? What the fashion of the men?" 

**They be of foolish fashion, Sir King, 
The fashion of that old knight-errantry 

115 Who ride abroad, and do but what they will; 
Courteous or bestial from the moment, such 

^ As have nor law nor king; and three of these 
Proud in their fantasy call themselves the Day, 
Morning-Star, and Noon-Sun, and Evening-Star, 

20 Being strong fools ; and never a whit more wise 
The fourth, who always rideth arm'd in black, 
A huge man-beast of boundless savagery. 
He names himself the Night and oftener Death, 

^ And wears a helmet mounted with a skull, 

25 And bears a skeleton figured on his arms, 
To show that who may slay or scape the three. 
Slain by himself, shall enter endless night. 
And all these four be fools, but mighty men, 

, And therefore am I come for Lancelot." 

30 Hereat Sir Gareth call'd from where he rose, 
A head with kindling eyes above the throng. 



80 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

'*A boon, Sir King — this quest!" then — for he 

mark'd 
Kay near him groaning like a wounded bull — 
*'Yea, King, thou knowest thy kitchen knave am I, 
And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I, 
And I can topple over a hundred such. 
Thy promise. King," and Arthur glancing at him, 
Brought down a momentary brow. ' ' Eough, sudden, 
And pardonable, worthy to be knight — 
Go therefore," and all hearers were amazed. 64o' 

But on the damsel's forehead shame, pride, wrath 
Slew the May-white : she lifted either arm, 
*'Fie on thee, King! I ask'd for thy chief knight. 
And thou hast given me but a kitchen-knave." 
Then ere a man in hall could stay her, turn'd, tih 

Fled down the lane of access to the King, 
Took horse, descended the slope street, and past 
The weird white gate, and paused without, beside 
The field of tourney, murmuring ''kitchen-knave." 

Now two great entries open'd from the hall, 65t 

At one end one, that gave upon a range 
Of level pavement where the King would pace 
At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood; 
And down from this a lordly stairway sloped 
Till lost in blowing trees and tops of towers ; 656 

And out by this main doorway past the King. 
But one was counter to the hearth, and rose 
High that the highest-crested helm could ride 
Therethro' nor graze: and by this entry fled 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 81 

The damsel in her wrath, and on to this 
Sir Gareth strode, and saw without the door 
King Arthur's gift, the worth of half a town, 
A warhorse of the best, and near it stood 
The two that out of north had foUow'd him: 

5 This bare a maiden shield, a casque ; that held 
The horse, the spear; whereat Sir Gareth loosed 
A cloak that dropt from collar-bone to heel, 
A cloth of roughest web, and cast it down. 
And from it like a fuel-smother'd fire, 

) That lookt half-dead, brake bright, and flash'd as 
those 
Dull-coated things, that making slide apart 
Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there burns 
A jewell'd harness, ere they pass and fly. 

J So Gareth ere he parted flash'd in arms. 

) Then as he donn'd the helm, and took the shield 
And mounted horse and graspt a spear, of grain 
Storm-strengthen'd on a windy site, and tipt 
With trenchant steel, around him slowly prest 
The people, while from out of kitchen came 

') The thralls in throng, and seeing who had work'd 
Lustier than any, and whom they could but love. 
Mounted in arms, threw up their caps and cried, 
"God bless the King, and all his fellowship!" 
And on thro' lanes of shouting Gareth rode 

^» Down the slope street, and past without the gate. 

So Gareth past with joy ; but as the cur 
Pluckt from the cur he fights with, ere his cause 
Be cool'd by fighting, follows, being named, 



flB5 



82 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

His owner, but remembers all, and growls 
Kemembering, so Sir Kay beside the door cw 

Mutter'd in scorn of Gareth whom he used 
To harry and hustle. 

''Bound upon a quest 
With horse and arms — the King hath past his time- 
My scullion knave ! Thralls to your work again, 
For an your fire be low ye kindle mine! 
Will there be dawn in West and eve in East? 
Begone ! — my knave ! — belike and like enow 
Some old head-blow not heeded in his youth 
So shook his wits they wander in his prime- 
Crazed ! How the villain lifted up his voice, 700i 
Nor shamed to bawl himself a kitchen-knave. 
Tut : he was tame and meek enow with me, 
Till peacock'd up with Lancelot's noticing. i 
Well — I will after my loud knave, and learn ' 
Whether he know me for his master yet. we' 
Out of the smoke he came, and so my lance 
Hold, by God's grace, he shall into the mire — 
Thence, if the King awaken from his craze, 
Into the smoke again." 

But Lancelot said, 
''Kay, wherefore wilt thou go against the King, tii. 
For that did never he whereon ye rail. 
But ever meekly served the King in thee? 
Abide : take counsel ; for this lad is great 
And lusty, and knowing both of lance and sword." 
"Tut, tell not me," said Kay, **ye are overfine ^ii 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 83 

To mar stout knaves with foolish courtesies:" 
: Then mounted, on thro' silent faces rode 
Down the slope city, and out beyond the gate. 

But by the field of tourney lingering yet 
10 Mutter 'd the damsel, ''Wherefore did the King 
Scorn me? for, were Sir Lancelot lackt, at least 
He might have yielded to me one of those 
J Who tilt for lady's love and glory here, 

Rather than — sweet heaven ! fie upon him — 
36 His kitchen-knave." 

To whom Sir Gareth drew 
(And there were none but few goodlier than he) 
Shining in arms, ''Damsel, the quest is mine. 
Lead, and I follow." She thereat, as one 
That smells a foul-flesh'd agaric in the holt, 

30 And deems it carrion of some woodland thing, 
Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose 
With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, "Hence! 
Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease. 
And look who comes behind," for there was Kay. 

35 "Knowest thou not me? thy master? I am Kay. 
We lack thee by the hearth. " 

And Gareth to him, 
"Master no more! too well I know thee, ay — 
The most ungentle knight in Arthur's hall." 
"Have at thee then," said Kay: they shock'd, and 
Kay 
no Fell shoulder-slipt, and Gareth cried again, 
"Lead, and I follow," and fast away she fled. 



74 



84 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

But after sod and shingle ceased to fly 
Behind her, and the heart of her good horse 
Was nigh to burst with violence of the beat, 
Perforce she stay'd, and overtaken spoke. 

''What doest thou, scullion, in my fellowship? 
Deem'st thou that I accept thee aught the more 
Or love thee better, that by some device 
Full cowardly, or by mere unhappiness. 
Thou hast overthrown and slain thy master— thou !- 
Dish-washer and broach-turner, loon!— to me 
Thou smellest all of kitchen as before." 

''Damsel," Sir Gareth answer'd gently, *^say 
Whate'er ye will, but whatsoe'er ye say, 
I leave not till I finish this fair quest, 755 

Or die therefore." 



"Ay, wilt thou finish it? 
Sweet lord, how like a noble knight he talks! 
The listening rogue hath caught the manner of it. 
But, knave, anon thou shalt be met with knave, 
And then by such a one that thou for all 
The kitchen brewis that was ever supt 
Shalt not once dare to look him in the face." 



780 



"I shall assay," said Gareth with a smile 
That madden'd her, and away she flashed again 
Down the long avenues of a boundless wood, 765 

And Gareth following was again beknaved. 
"Sir Kitchen-knave, I have miss'd the only way 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 85 

Where Arthur's men are set along the wood; 
The wood is nigh as full of thieves as leaves: 
770 If both be slain, I am rid of thee ; but yet, 
Sir Scullion, canst thou use that spit of thine? 
Fight, an thou canst: I have miss'd the only way." 

So till the dusk that follow 'd even-song 
Eode on the two, reviler and reviled ; 

775 Then after one long slope was mounted, saw, 
Bowl-shaped, thro' tops of many thousand pines 
A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink 
To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere, 
Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl, 

780 Under the half-dead sunset glared ; and shouts 
Ascended, and there brake a serving man 

5 Plying from oufc of the black wood, and crying, 
**They have bound my lord to cast him in the mere." 
Then Gareth, ''Bound am I to right the wrong 'd, 

785 But straitlier bound am I to bide with thee." 
And when the damsel spake contemptuously, 
*'Lead, and I follow," Gareth cried again, 
"Follow, I lead!" so down among the pines 

I He plunged; and there, blackshadow'd nigh the 
mere, 

790 And mid- thigh -deep in bulrushes and reed, 
Saw six tall men haling a seventh along, 
A stone about his neck to drown him in it. 
Three with good blows he quieted, but three 
Fled thro' the pines; and Gareth loosed the stone 

795 From off his neck, then in the mere beside 
Tumbled it; oilily bubbled up the mere. 



86 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Last, Gareth loosed his bonds and on free feet 
Set him, a stalwart Baron, Arthur's friend. 

''Well that ye came, or else these caitiff rogues 
Had wreak'd themselves on me; good cause is theirs soo 
To hate me, for my wont hath ever been 
To catch my thief, and then like vermin here 
Drown him, and with a stone about his neck; 
And under this wan water many of them 
Lie rotting, but at night let go the stone, 805 

And rise, and flickering in a grimly light 
Dance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved a life 
Worth somewhat as the cleanser of this wood. 
And fain would I reward thee worshipfuUy. 
What guerdon will ye?" g^^ 

Gareth sharply spake, 
"None! for the deed's sake have I done the deed, 
In uttermost obedience to the King. 
But wilt thou yield this damsel harbourage?" 

Whereat the Baron saying, ^'I well believe 
You be of Arthur's Table," a light laugh 
Broke from Lynette, '^Ay, truly of a truth, 
And in a sort, being Arthur's kitchen-knave!— 
But deem not I accept thee aught the more. 
Scullion, for running sharply with thy spit 
Down on a rout of craven foresters. 
A thresher with his flail had scatter'd them. 
Nay— for thou smellest of the kitchen still. 
But an this lord will yield us harbourage, well." 



815 



820 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 87 

So she spake. A league beyond the wood, 

8t5 All in a fnll-fair manor and a rich, 

His towers where that day a feast had been 
Held in high hall, and many a viand left. 
And many a costly cate, received the three. 
And there they placed a peacock in his pride 

830 Before the damsel, and the Baron set 
Gareth beside her, but at once she rose. 

^'Meseems, that here is much discourtesy, 
Setting this knave, Lord Baron, at my side. 
Hear me — this morn I stood in Arthur's hall, 

835 And pray'd the King would grant me Lancelot 
To fight the brotherhood of Day and Night — 
The last a monster unsubduable 
Of any save of him for whom I call'd — 
Suddenly bawls this frontless kitchen-knave, 

840 *The quest is mine; thy kitchen-knave am I, 
And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I.' 
Then Arthur all at once gone mad replies, 
'Go therefore,' and so gives the quest to him — 
Him — here — a villain fitter to stick swine 

845 Than ride abroad redressing woman's wrong, 
Or sit beside a noble gentlewoman. " 
Then half-ashamed and part-amazed, the lord 
Now look'd at one and now at other, left 
The damsel by the peacock in his pride, 

850 And, seating Gareth at another board. 
Sat down beside him, ate and then began. 

"Friend, whether thou be kitchen-knave, or not. 
Or whether it be the maiden's fantasy. 



88 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And whether she be mad, or else the[,King, 

Or both or neither, or thyself be mad, 855 

I ask not : but thou strikest a strong stroke. 

For strong thou art and goodly therewithal, . 

And saver of my life; and therefore now, 1 

For here be mighty men to joust with, weigh | 

Whether thou wilt not with thy damsel back m 

To crave again Sir Lancelot of the King. 

Thy pardon; I but speak for thine avail, I 

The saver of my life." 

And Gareth said, 
''Full pardon, but I follow up the quest. 
Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell." m 

So when, next morn, the lord whose life he saved 
Had, some brief space, convey'd them on their way 
And left them with God-speed, Sir Gareth spake, 
''Lead, and I follow." Haughtily she replied, 

"I fly no more: I allow thee for an hour. 87o 

Lion and stoat have isled together, knave. 
In time of flood. Nay, furthermore, methinks 
Some ruth is mine for thee. Back wilt thou, fool? 
For hard by here is one will overthrow 
And slay thee : then will I to court again, 875 

And shame the King for only yielding me 
My champion from the ashes of his hearth." 

To whom Sir Gareth answer'd courteously, 
"Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 89 

880 Allow me for mine hour, and thou wilt find 
My fortunes all as fair as hers who lay 
Among the ashes and wedded the King's son." 

Then to the shore of one of those long loops 
Wherethro' the serpent river coil'd, they came. 

885 Eough-thicketed were the banks and steep; the 
stream 
Full, narrow; this a bridge of single arc 
Took at a leap ; and on the further side 
Arose a silk pavilion, gay with gold 
In streaks and rays, and all Lent-lily in hue, 

890 Save that the dome was purple, and above, 
Crimson, a slender banneret fluttering. 
And therebefore the lawless warrior paced 
Unarm'd, and calling, '^ Damsel, is this he, 
The champion thou hast brought from Arthur's hall? 

895 For whom we let thee pass." ''Nay, nay," she said, 
*'Sir Morning-Star. The King in utter scorn 
Of thee and thy much folly hath sent thee here 
His kitchen-knave : and look thou to thyself : 
See that he fall not on thee suddenly, 

900 And slay thee unarm'd : he is not knight but knave. " 

Then at his call, "0 daughters of the Dawn, 
And servants of the Morning-Star, approach, 
Arm me," from out the silken curtain-folds 
Bare-footed and bare-headed three fair girls 
905 In gilt and rosy raiment came : their feet 
In dewy grasses glisten'd; and the hair 
All over glanced with dewdrop or with gem 



90 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Like sparkles in the stone Avanturine. 

These arm'd him in blue arms, and gave a shield 

Blue also, and thereon the morning star. 910 

And Gareth silent gazed upon the knight, 

Who stood a moment, ere his horse was brought, 

Glorying; and in the stream beneath him, shone 

Immingled with Heaven's azure waveringly, 

The gay pavilion and the naked feet, 911 

His arms, the rosy raiment, and the star. 

Then she that watch 'd him, ''Wherefore stare ye so? 
Thou shakest in thy fear: there yet is time: 
Flee down the valley before he get to horse. 
Who will cry shame? Thou art not knight but knave. ' ' m 

Said Gareth, ''Damsel, whether knave or knight, 
Far liefer had I fight a score of times 
Than hear thee so missay me and revile. 
Fair words were best for him who fights for thee; 
But truly foul are better, for they send 925 

That strength of anger thro' mine arms, I know 
That I shall overthrow him." 

And he that bore 
The star, when mounted, cried from o'er the bridge, 
"A kitchen-knave, and sent in scorn of me! 
Such fight not I, but answer scorn with scorn. ©so 

For this were shame to do him further wrong 
Than set him on his feet, and take his horse 
And arms, and so return him to the King. 
Come, therefore, leave thy lady lightly, knave. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 91 

935 Avoid : for it beseemeth not a knave 
To ride with such a lady." 

*'Dog, thou liest. 
I spring from loftier lineage than thine own." 
He spake ; and all at fiery speed the two 
Shock 'd on the central bridge, and either spear 

940 Bent but not brake, and either knight at once, 
Hurl'd as a stone from out of a catapult 
Beyond his horse's crupper and the bridge. 
Fell, as if dead ; but quickly rose and drew. 
And Gareth lash'd so fiercely with his brand 

945 He drave his enemy backward down the bridge. 
The damsel crying, '' Well-stricken, kitchen-knave!" 
Till Gareth 's shield was cloven; but one stroke 
Laid him that clove it grovelling on the ground. 

Then cried the fall'n, ''Take not my life: lyield." 
950 And Gareth, ''So this damsel ask it of me 
Good — I accord it easily as a grace." 
She reddening, "Insolent scullion: I of thee? 
I bound to thee for any favour ask'd!" 
"Then shall he die." And Gareth there unlaced 
956 His helmet as to slay him, but she shriek'd, 
"Be not so hardy, scullion, as to slay 
One nobler than thyself." "Damsel, thy charge 
Is an abounding pleasure to me. Knight, 
Thy life is thine at her command. Arise 
960 And quickly pass to Arthur's hall, and say 

His kitchen-knave hath sent thee. See thou crave 
His pardon for thy breaking of his laws. 



92 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Myself, when I return, will plead for thee. 

Thy shield is mine— farewell ; and, damsel, thou. 

Lead, and I follow." 



965 



And fast away she fled. 
Then when he came upon her, spake, ''Methought, 
Knave, when I watch 'd thee striking on the bridge 
The savour of thy kitchen came upon me 
A little faintlier: but the wind hath changed: 
I scent it twenty-fold." And then she sang, 970 

'* '0 morning star' (not that tall felon there 
Whom thou by sorcery or unhappiness 
Or some device, hast foully overthrown), 
'0 morning star that smilest in the blue, 
star, my morning dream hath proven true, 975 

Smile sweetly, thou! my love hath smiled on me.' 

"But thou begone, take counsel, and away, 
For hard by here is one that guards a ford— 
The second brother in their fool's parable- 
Will pay thee all thy wages, and to boot. 98o 
Care not for shame : thou art not knight but knave. " 

To whom Sir Gareth answer'd laughingly, 
''Parables? Hear a parable of the knave. 
When I was kitchen-knave among the rest 
Fierce was the hearth, and one of my co-mates 985 

Own'd a rough dog, to whom he cast his coat, 
'Guard it,' and there was none to meddle with it. 
And such a coat art thou, and thee the King 
Gave me to guard, and such a dog am I, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 93 

990 To worry, and not to flee — and — knight or knave — 
The knave that doth thee service as full knight 
Is all as good, meseems, as any knight 
Toward thy sister's freeing." 

'*Ay, Sir Knave! 
Ay, knave, because thou strikest as a knight, 
995 Being but knave, I hate thee all the more." 

^'Fair damsel, you should worship me the more. 
That, being but knave, I throw thine enemies." 

''Ay, ay," she said, ''but thou shalt meet thy 
match." 

So when they touch 'd the second river-loop, 
300 Huge on a huge red horse, and all in mail 
Burnish'd to blinding, shone the Noonday Sun 
Beyond a raging shallow. As if the flower, 
That blows a globe of after arrowlets, 
Ten thousand-fold had grown, flash'd the fierce 
shield, 

)06 All sun; and Gareth's eyes had flying blots 
Before them when he turn'd from watching him. 
He from beyond the roaring shallow roar'd, 
"What doest thou, brother, in my marches here?" 
And she athwart the shallow shrill' d again, 
•10 "Here is a kitchen-knave from Arthur's hall 

Hath overthrown thy brother, and hath his arms." 
"Ugh!" cried the Sun, and vizoring up a red 
And cipher face of rounded foolishness, 



94 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

PushM horse across the foamings of the ford, 
Whom Gareth-met midstream : no room was there 
For lance or tourney-skill: four strokes they 

struck 
With sword, and these were mighty; the new knight 
Had fear he might be shamed; but as the Sun 
Heaved up a ponderous arm to strike the fifth. 
The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, the stream loi 
Descended, and the Sun was wash'd away. 

Then Gareth laid his lance athwart the ford; 
So drew him home; but he that fought no more, j 

As being all bone-batter'd on the rock. 
Yielded; and Gareth sent him to the King. lo: 

** Myself when I return will plead for thee." 
'*Lead, and I follow." Quietly she led. 
''Hath not the good wind, damsel, changed again?" 
''Nay, not a point: nor art thou victor here. 
There lies a ridge of slate across the ford ; 
His horse thereon stumbled — ay, for I saw it. 



103 



" '0 Sun' (not this strong fool whom thou. Sir 
Knave, 
Hast overthrown thro' mere unhappiness), 
'0 Sun, that wakenest all to bliss or pain, 
moon, that layest all to sleep again, lo: 

Shine sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me.' 

"What knowest thou of lovesong or of love? 
NTay, nay, God wot, so thou wert nobly born. 
Thou hast a pleasant presence. Yea, perchance,— 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 05 

40 '' '0 dewy flowers that open to the sun, 
, dewy flowers that close when day is done, 
Blow sweetly : twice my love hath smiled on me. ' 

''What knowest thou of flowers, except, belike. 
To garnish meats with? hath not our good King 
i5 Who lent me thee, the flower of kitchendom, 
) A foolish love for flowers? what stick ye round 
The pasty? wherewithal deck the boar's head? 
Flowers? nay, the boar hath rosemaries and bay. 

*' '0 birds, that warble to the morning sky, 
50 birds that warble as the day goes by. 
Sing sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me.' 

''What knowest thou of birds, lark, mavis, merle. 
Linnet? 'what dream ye when they utter forth 
May-music growing with the growing light, 
bb Their sweet sun-worship? these be for the snare 
c (So runs thy fancy), these be for the spit. 
Larding and basting. See thou have not now 
Larded thy last, except thou turn and fly. 
There stands the third fool of their allegory." 

80 For there beyond a bridge of treble bow, 
All in a rose-red from the west, and all 

J Naked it seem'd, and glowing in the broad 
Deep-dimpled current underneath, the knight. 
That named himself the Star of Evening, stood. 

55 And Gareth, "Wherefore waits the madman there 
Naked in open dayshine?" "Nay," she cried. 



96 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

"Not naked, only wrapt in harden 'd skins 
That fit him like his own ; and so ye cleave 
His armour off him, these will turn the blade." 

Then the third brother shouted o'er the bridge, lo^ 
"0 brother-star, why shine ye here so low? 
Thy ward is higher up : but have ye slain 
The damsel's champion?" and the damsel cried, 

"No star of thine, but shot from Arthur's heaven 
With all disaster unto thine and thee ! iot: 

For both thy younger brethren have gone down 
Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star; 
Art thou not old?" 

"Old, damsel, old and hard. 
Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys." 
Said Gareth, "Old, and over-bold in brag! loei 

But that same strength which threw the Morning Star 
Can throw the Evening." 

Then that other blew 
A hard and deadly note upon the horn. 
' ' Approach and arm me ! " With slow steps from out 
An old storm-beaten, russet, many-stain'd m 

Pavilion, forth a grizzled damsel came. 
And arm'd him in old arms, and brought a helm 
With but a drying evergreen for crest. 
And gave a shield whereon the Star of Even 
Half-tarnish'd and half-bright, his emblem, shone. lOW 
But when it glitter'd o'er the saddle-bow, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 97 

They madly hurPd together on the bridge; 
And Gareth overthrew him, lighted, drew, 
There met him drawn, and overthrew him again, 
,095 But up like fire he started : and as oft 

As Gareth brought him grovelling on his knees. 
So many a time he vaulted up again; 
Till Gareth panted hard, and his great heart, 
Foredooming all his trouble was in vain, 

100 Labour'd within him, for he seem'd as one 
That all in later, sadder age begins 
To war against ill uses of a life. 
But these from all his life arise, and cry, 
"Thou hast made us lords, and canst not put us 
down!" 

105 He half despairs; so Gareth seem'd to strike 
Vainly, the damsel clamouring all the while, 
**Well done, knave-knight, well stricken, good 

knight-knave — 
knave, as noble as any of all the knights — 
Shame me not, shame me not. I have prophesied— 

110 Strike, thou art worthy of the Table Round — 
His arms are old, he trusts the harden 'd skin — 
Strike — strike — the wind will never change again." 
And Gareth hearing ever stronglier smote. 
And hew'd great pieces of his armour off him, 

15 But lash'd in vain against the harden'd skin. 
And could not wholly bring him under, more 
Than loud Southwesterns, rolling ridge on ridge. 
The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs 
For ever; till at length Sir Gareth's brand 

20 Clash'd his, and brake it utterly to the hilt. 



98 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

''I have thee now;" but forth that other sprang, 

And, all unknightlike, writhed his wiry arms 

Around him, till he felt, despite his mail. 

Strangled, but straining ev'n his uttermost 

Cast, and so hurl'd him headlong o'er the bridge nss 

Down to the river, sink or swim, and cried, 

'*Lead, and I follow." 

But the damsel said, 
*'I lead no longer; ride thou at my side; 
Thou art the kingliest of all kitchen-knaves. 

'* *0 trefoil, sparkling on the rainy plain, iiso 

rainbow with three colours after rain. 

Shine sweetly : thrice my love hath smiled on me. ' 

''Sir, — and, good faith, I fain had added — Knight, 
But that I heard thee call thyself a knave, — 
Shamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled, ii 

Missaid thee ; noble I am ; and thought the King 
Scorn'd me and mine; and now thy pardon, friend. 
For thou hast ever answer'd courteously. 
And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal 
As any of Arthur's best, but, being knave, luo 

Hast mazed my wit: I marvel what thou art." 

'^Damsel," he said, **you be not all to blame, 
Saving that you mistrusted our good King 
Would handle scorn, or yield you, asking, one 
Not fit to cope your quest. You said your say ; 1145 j 

Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth ! I hold 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 99 

He scarce is knight, yea but half-man, nor meet 
To fight for gentle damsel, he, who lets 
His heart be stirr'd with any foolish heat 
1150 At any gentle damsel's waywardness. 

Shamed ! care not ! thy foul sayings fought for me : 
And seeing now thy words are fair, methinks 
There rides no knight, not Lancelot, his great self. 
Hath force to quell me." 

Nigh upon that hour 
1155 When the lone hern forgets his melancholy, 
Lets down his other leg, and stretching, dreams 
Of goodly supper in the distant pool. 
Then turn'd the noble damsel smiling at him, 
And told him of a cavern hard at hand, 
1160 Where bread and baken meats and good red wine 
Of Southland, which the Lady Lyonors 
Had sent her coming champion, waited him. 

Anon they past a narrow comb wherein 
Were slabs of rock with figures, knights on horse 

1165 Sculptured, and deckt in slowly-waning hues. 
''Sir Knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, 
Whose holy hand hath fashion 'd on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man. 
And yon four fools have suck'd their allegory 

1170 From these damp walls, and taken but the form. 
Know ye not these?" and Gareth lookt and read — 
In letters like to those the vexillary 
Hath left crag-carven o'er the streaming Gelh — 
' ' Phosphorus, ' ' then' ' Meridies' ' — ' ' Hesperus"— 



100 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

''Nox"— ''Mors," beneath five figures, armed men, 117% 

Slab after slab, their faces forward all, 

And running down the Soul, a Shape that fled 

With broken wings, torn raiment and loose hair. 

For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. 

''Follow the faces, and we find it. Look, iiso 

Who comes behind!" 

For one — delay 'd at first 
Thro' helping back the dislocated Kay 
To Camelot, then by what thereafter chanced, 
The damsel's headlong error thro' the wood — 
Sir Lancelot, having swum the river-loops — iisg 

His blue shield-lions cover 'd — softly drew 
Behind the twain, and when he saw the star 
Gleam, on Sir Gareth's turning to him, cried, 
"Stay, felon knight, I avenge me for my friend." 
And Gareth crying prick 'd against the cry; 1100 

But when they closed — in a moment — at one touch 
Of that skill' d spear, the wonder of the world — 
Went sliding down so easily, and fell. 
That when he found the grass within his hands 
He laugh'd; the laughter jarr'd upon Lynette: 
Harshly sheask'd him, "Shamed and overthrown, 
And tumbled back into the kitchen-knave, 
Why laugh ye? that ye blew your boast in vain?" 
"Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son 
Of old King Lot and good Queen Bellicent, 1300 

And victor of the bridges and the ford, 
And knight of Arthur, here lie throv/n by whom 
I know not, all thro' mere unhappiness— 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 101 

Device and sorcery and unhappiness — 
305 Out, sword; we are thrown!" And Lancelot 

answer 'd, *' Prince, 
' Gareth— thro' the mere unhappiness 
Of one who came to help thee, not to harm, 
Lancelot, and all as glad to find thee whole, 
As on the day when Arthur knighted him." 

1210 Then Gareth, ''Thou— Lancelot!— thine the hand 
That threw me? And some chance to mar the boast 
Thy brethren of thee make— which could not 

chance — 
Had sent thee down before a lesser spear. 
Shamed had I been, and sad— Lancelot— thou!" 

1315 Whereat the maiden, petulant, "Lancelot, 

Why came ye not, when call'd? and wherefore now 
Come ye, not call'd? I gloried in my knave. 
Who being still rebuked, would answer still 
Courteous as any knight— but now, if knight, 

1330 The marvel dies, and leaves me fool'd and trick'd. 
And only wondering wherefore play'd upon: 
And doubtful whether I and mine be scorn'd. 
Where should be truth if not in Arthur's hall. 
In Arthur's presence? Knight, knave, prince and 
fool, 

1325 I hate thee and for ever." 

And Lancelot said, 
''Blessed be thou, Sir Gareth! knight art thou 
To the King's best wish. damsel, be you wise 



102 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

To call him shamed, who is hut overthrown? Ij 

Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a time. *' 

Victor from vanquish'd issues at the last, 1230 

And overthrower from being overthrown. 

With sword we have not striven ; and thy good horse 

And thou are weary ; yet not less I felt 

Thy manhood thro' that wearied lance of thine. 

Well hast thou done; for all the stream is freed, 1235 

And thou hast wreak 'd his justice on his foes, 

And when reviled, hast answer'd graciously, 

And makest merry when overthrown. Prince, 

Knight, 
Hail, Knight and Prince, and of our Table Bound!" 

And then when turning to Lynette he told 1240 

The tale of Gareth, petulantly she said, 
*'Ay well— ay well— for worse than being fool'd 
Of others, is to fool one's self. A cave. 
Sir Lancelot, is hard by, with meats and drinks 
And forage for the horse, and flint for fire. 1245 

But all about it flies a honeysuckle. 
Seek, till we find. " And when they sought and found, 
Sir Gareth drank and ate, and all his life 
Past into sleep; on whom the maiden gazed. 

Sound sleep be thine ! sound cause to sleep hast thou. 1350 
Wake lusty! Seem I not as tender to him 
As any mother? Ay, but such a one 
As all day long hath rated at her child, 
And vext his day, but blesses him asleep- 
Good lord, how sweetly smells the honeysuckle 1255 
In the hush'd night, as if the world were one 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 103 

Of utter peace, and love, and gentleness ! 

Lancelot, Lancelot" — and she clapt her hands— 

"Full merry am I to find my goodly knave 
260 Is knight and noble. See now, sworn have I, 

Else yon black felon had not let me pass, 

To bring thee back to do the battle with him. 

Thus an thou goest, he will fight thee first ; 

Who doubts thee victor? so will my knight-knave 
265 Miss the full flower of this accomplishment." 

Said Lancelot, "Peradventure he, you name. 
May know my shield. Let Gareth, an he will. 
Change his for mine, and take my charger, fresh, 
Not to be spurr'd, loving the battle as well 
1270 As he that rides him." ''Lancelot-like," she said, 
"Courteous in this. Lord Lancelot, as in all." 

And Gareth, wakening, fiercely clutch'd the shield; 
"Ramp ye lance-splintering lions, on whom all spears 
Are rotten sticks! ye seem agape to roar! 

1275 Yea, ramp and roar at leaving of your lord! — 
Care not, good beasts, so well I care for you. 
noble Lancelot, from my hold on these 
Streams virtue — fire — thro' one that will not shame 
Even the shadow of Lancelot under shield. 

1280 Hence: let us go." 

Silent the silent field 
They traversed. Arthur's harp tho' summer-wan. 
In counter motion to the clouds, allured 
The glance of Gareth dreaming on his liege. . 



104 SELECTIONS FROM TENx>JYSON 

A star shot: "Lo," said Gareth, 'Hhe foe falls!" 

An owl whoopt: ''Hark the victor pealing there!" i285 

Suddenly she that rode upon his left 

Clung to the shield that Lancelot lent him, crying, 

''Yield, yield him this again: 'tis he must fight: 

I curse the tongue that all thro' yesterday 

Reviled thee, and hath wrought on Lancelot now 1290 

To lend thee horse and shield: wonders ye have 

done; 
Miracles ye cannot : here is glory enow 
In having flung the three: I see thee maim'd. 
Mangled: I swear thou canst not fling the fourth." 

''And wherefore, damsel? tell me all ye know. 1295 
You cannot scare me; nor rough face, or voice. 
Brute bulk of limb, or boundless savagery 
Appall me from the quest." 

"Nay, Prince," she cried, 
*'God wot, I never look'd upon the face. 
Seeing he never rides abroad by day; i30o 

But watch'd him have I like a phantom, pass 
Chilling the night : nor have I heard the voice. 
Always he made his mouthpiece of a page 
Who came and went, and still reported him 
As closing in himself the strength of ten, 1305 

And when his anger tare him, massacring 
Man, woman, lad and girl — yea, the soft babe! 
Some hold that he hath swallow'd infant flesh. 
Monster! Prince, I went for Lancelot first, 
The quest is Lancelot's: give him back the shield." i3io 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 105 

Said Gareth laughing, ''An he fight for this, 
Belike he wins it as the better man: 
Thus — and not else!" 

But Lancelot on him urged 
All the devisings of their chivalry 
115 When one might meet a mightier than himself ; 
How best to manage horse, lance, sword and shield. 
And so fill up the gap where force might fail 
With skill and fineness. Instant were his words. 

Then Gareth, ''Here be rules. I know but one — 
30 To dash against mine enemy and to win. 
Yet have I watch'd thee victor in the joust, 
And seen thy way." "Heaven help thee," sigh' d 
' Lynette. 

Then for a space, and under cloud that grew 
To thunder-gloom palling all stars, they rode 

35 In converse till she made her palfrey halt, 
Lifted an arm, and softly whisper'd, "There." 
And all the three were silent seeing, pitch 'd 

jj Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field, 
A huge pavilion like a mountain peak 

30 Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge, 
Black, with black banner, and a long black horn 
Beside it hanging ; which Sir Gareth graspt, 

^ And so, before the two could hinder him. 

Sent all his heart and breath thro' all the horn. 

35 Echo'd the walls; a light twinkled; anon 
Came lights and lights, and once again he blew; 
Whereon were hollow trarnplings up and down 
And muffled voices heard, and shadows past; 



106 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Till high above him, circled with her maids, 
The Lady Lyonors at a window stood, i34( 

Beautiful among lights, and waving to him 
White hands, and courtesy ; but when the Prince 
Three times had blown — after long hush — at last- 
The huge pavilion slowly yielded up, 
Thro' those black foldings, that which housed therein. 134; 
High on a nightblack horse, in nightblack arms. 
With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death, 
And crown 'd with fleshless laughter — some ten steps- 
In the half-light — thro' the dim dawn — advanced 
The monster, and then paused, and spake no word. 135 

But Gareth spake and all indignantly, 
**Fool, for thou hast, men say, the strength of ten, 
Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given. 
But must, to make the terror of thee more. 
Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries 135 

Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod, 
Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers 
As if for pity?" But he spake no word; 
Which set the horror higher: a maiden swoon'd; 
The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept, 13- 

As doom'd to be the bride of Night and Death; 
Sir Gareth's head prickled beneath his helm; 
And ev'n Sir Lancelot thro' his warm blood felt 
Ice strike, and all that mark'd him were aghast. 

At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neigh'd, is. 
And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with 
him. 






GARETH AND LYXETTE 107 

Then those that did not blini the terror, saw 
That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose. 
But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull. 

70 Half fell to right and half to left and lay. 
Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm 
As throughly as the skull ; and out from this 
Issued the bright face of a blooming boy 
Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, "Knight, 

76 Slay me not ; my three brethren bade me do it. 
To make a horror all about the house. 
And stay the world from Lady Lyonors. 
They never dream'd the passes would be past." 
Answer'd Sir Gareth graciously to one 

180 Not many a moon his younger, "My fair child, 
What madness made thee challenge the chief knight 
Of Arthur's hall?" "Fair Sir, they bade me do it. 
They hate the King, and Lancelot, the King's friend, 
They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream, 

185 They never dream'd the passes could be past." 

Then sprang the happier day from underground ; 
And Lady Lyonors and her house, with dance 
And revel and song, made merry over Death, 
As being after all their foolish fears 
»o And horrors only proven a blooming boy. 

So large mirth lived and Gareth won the quest. 

And he that told the tale in older times 
Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, 
But he, that told it later, says Lynette. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, 
High in her chamber up a tower to the east 
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; 
Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray 5 
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam; 
Then fearing rust or soilure fashion'd for it 
A case of silk, and braided thereupon 
All the devices blazon'd on the shield 
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, 10 

A border fantasy of branch and flower, 
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. 
Nor rested thus content, but day by day, 
Leaving her household and good father, climb'd 
That eastern tower, and entering barr'd her door, is 
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, • 
Now guess'd a hidden meaning in his arms, 
Now made a pretty history to herself 
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it. 
And every scratch a lance had made upon it, 20 

Conjecturing when and where : this cut is fresh ; 
That ten years back ; this dealt him at Caerlyle ; 
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot: 
And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there! 
And here a thrust that might have kill'd, but God 25 
Broke the strong lance, and roll'd his enemy down, 
And saved him : so she lived in fantasy, 

108 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 109 

How came the lily maid by that good shield 
Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev'n his name? 
30 He left it with her, when he rode to tilt 
For the great diamond in the diamond Jousts, 
Which Arthur had ordain'd, and by that name 
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. 

For Arthur, long before they crown 'd him 
King, 

35 Eoving the trackless realms of Lyonesse, 

Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn. 
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave 
Like its own mists to all the mountain side : 
For here two brothers, one a king, had met 

40 And fought together; but their names were lost; 
And each had slain his brother at a blow ; 
And down they fell and made the glen abhorr'd: 
And there they lay till all their bones were bleach'd. 
And lichen 'd into colour with the crags: 

46 And he, that once was king, had on a crown 
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside. 
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass, 
All in a misty moonshine, unawares 
Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and the skull 

50 Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown 
RoU'd into light, and turning on its rims 
Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn : 
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught. 
And set it on his head, and in his heart 

55 Heard murmurs, *'Lo, thou likewise shalt be 
King." 



110 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Thereafter, when a King, he had the gems 
Pluck'd from the crown, and show'd them to his 

knights, 
Saying, "These jewels, whereupon I chanced 
Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's — 
For public use : henceforward let there be, 60 

Once every year, a joust for one of these : 
For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn 
Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow 
In use of arms and manhood, till we drive 
The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land es 
Hereafter, which God hinder." Thus he spoke: 
And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still 
Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year, 
With purpose to present them to the Queen, 
When all were won ; but meaning all at once 70" 

To snare her royal fancy with a boon 
Worth half her realm, had never spoken word. 

Now for the central diamond and the last 
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court 
Hard on the river nigh the place which now 75 

Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust 
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh 
Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere, 
"Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot move 
To these fair jousts?" "Yea, lord," she said, "ye 80 

know it." 
"Then will ye miss," he answer 'd, "the great deeds 
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, 
A sight ye love to look on." And the Queen 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 111 

Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly 
85 On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King; 
He thinking that he read her meaning there, 
'*Stay with me, I am sick; my love is more 
Than many diamonds," yielded; and a heart 
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen 
90 (However much he yearn'd to make complete 
The tale of diamonds for his destined boon) 
Urged him to speak against the truth, and say, 
*'Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole. 
And lets me from the saddle;" and the King 
95 Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. 
No sooner gone than suddenly she began : 

"To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame! 
Why go ye not to these fair jousts? the knights 
Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd 

[00 Will murmur, 'Lo the shameless ones, who take 
Their pastime now the trustful King is gone!' " 
Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain : 
"Are ye so wise? ye were not once so wise. 
My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first. 

105 Then of the crowd ye took no more account 
Than of the myriad cricket of the mead. 
When its own voice clings to each blade of grass. 
And every voice is nothing. As to knights, 
Them surely can I silence with all ease. 

110 But now my loyal worship is allow 'd 

Of all men : many a bard, without offence. 
Has link'd our names together in his lay, 
Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guinevere, 



112 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

The pearl of beauty : and our knights at feast 
Have pledged us in this union, while the King 
Would listen smiling. How then? is there more? 
.Has Arthur spoken aught? or would yourself, 
Now weary of my service and devoir. 
Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord?" 

She broke into a little scornful laugh : lao 

"Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, 
That passionate perfection, my good lord — 
But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? 
He never spake word of reproach to me. 
He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, 125 

He cares not for me: only here to-day 
There gleam'd a vague suspicion in his eyes : 
Some meddling rogue has tamper'd with him— else 
Rapt in this fancy of his Table Eound, 
And swearing men to vows impossible, i3o 

To make them like himself : but, friend, to me 
He is all fault who hath no fault at all : 
For who loves me must have a touch of earth; 
The low sun makes the colour : I am yours. 
Not Arthur's, as ye know, save by the bond. 135 

And therefore hear my words : go to the jousts : 
The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream 
When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 
May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they sting." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of knights: i40 
*'And with what face, after my pretext made. 
Shall I appear, Queen, at Camelot, I 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 113 

Before a King who honours his own word, 
As if it were his God's?" 

''Yea," said the Queen, 
) "A moral child without the craft to rule, 
' Else had he not lost me : but listen to me, 
If I must find you wit : we hear it said 
That men go down before your spear at a touch. 
But knowing you are Lancelot ; your great name, 
I This conquers : hide it therefore ; go unknown : 
Win ! by this kiss you will : and our true King 
Will then allow your pretext, my knight. 
As all for glory; for to speak him true. 
Ye know right well, how meek soe'er he seem, 
> No keener hunter after glory breathes. 
He loves it in his knights more than himself: 
They prove to him his work: win and return." 

Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse. 

Wroth at himself. Not willing to be known, 
) He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, 

Chose the green path that show'd the rarer foot, 
' And there among the solitary downs. 

Full often lost in fancy, lost his way; 

Till as he traced a faintly-shadow'd track, 
'» That all in loops and links among the dales 

Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw 

Fired from the west, far on a hill, the towers. 
' Thither he made, and blew the gateway horn. 

Then came an old, dumb, myriad- wrinkled man, 
• Who let him into lodging and disarm 'd. 



114 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And Lancelot marvell'd at the wordless man; 

And issuing found the Lord of Astolat 

With two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, 

Moving to meet him in the castle court; 

And close behind them stept the lily maid 

Elaine, his daughter: mother of the house 

There was not: some light jest among them rose 

With laughter dying down as the great knight 

Approach'd them: then the Lord of Astolat: 

''Whence comest thou, my guest, and by what name u 

Livest between the lips? for by thy state 

And presence I might guess thee chief of those, 

After the King, who eat in Arthur's halls. 

Him have I seen : the rest, his Table Round, 

Known as they are, to me they are unknown." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of knights : 
''Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and known, 
What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. 
But since I go to joust as one unknown 
At Oamelot for the diamond, ask me not, 19 

Hereafter ye shall know me — and the shield — 
I pray you lend me one, if such you have, 
Blank, or at least with some device not mine." 

Then said the Lord of Astolat, "Here is Torre's: 
Hurt in his first tilt was my son. Sir Torre. li^. 

And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. 
His ye can have." Then added plain Sir Torre, 
"Yea, since I cannot use it, ye may have it." 
Here laugh'd the father saying, "Fie, Sir Churl, i 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 115 

00 Is that an answer for a noble knight? 
Allow him ! but Lavaine, my younger here, 
He is so full of lustihood, he will ride, 
Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour, 
f And set it in this damsel's golden hair, 
05 To make her thrice as wilful as before." 

''Nay, father, nay, good father, shame me not 
Before this noble knight," said young Lavaine, 
''For nothing. Surely I but play'd on Torre: 
He seem'd so sullen, vext he could not go: 

10 A Jest, no more ! for, knight, the maiden dreamt 
That some one put this diamond in her hand, 
And that it was too slippery to be held, 
And slipt and fell into some pool or stream, 
The castle-well, belike ; and then I said 

15 That if I went and if I fought and won it 
(But all was jest and joke among ourselves) 
Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. 
But, father, give me leave, an if he will. 
To ride to Camelot with this noble knight : 

» Win shall I not, but do my best to win : 
Young as I am, yet would I do my best." 

"So ye will grace me," answer 'd Lancelot, 
Smiling a moment, "with your fellowship 
O'er these waste downs whereon I lost myself, 
55 Then were I glad of you as guide and friend : 
And you shall win this diamond, — as I hear 
It is a fair large diamond, — if ye may, 
And yield it to this maiden, if ye will." 



116 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

*^A fair large diamond," added plain Sir Torre, 

*'Such be for queens, and not for simple maids." 23 

Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, 

Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, 

Flushed slightly at the slight disparagement 

Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her, 

Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return'd: 23 

''If what is fair be but for what is fair, 

And only queens are to be counted so. 

Rash were my judgment then, who deem this maid 

Might wear as fair a jewel as is on earth, 

Not violating the bond of like to like." 24? 

He spoke and ceased : the lily maid Elaine, 

Won by the mellow voice before she look'd. 

Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. 

The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 

In battle with the love he bare his lord, 34? 

Had marr'd his face, and mark'd it ere his time. 

Another sinning on such heights with one, 

The flower of all the west and all the world. 

Had been the sleeker for it : but in him 

His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 25( 

And drove him into wastes and solitudes 

For agony, who was yet a living soul. 

Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest man 

That ever among ladies ate in hall. 

And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 2^^= 

However marr'd, of more than twice her years, 

Seam'd with an ancient swordcut on the cheek. 

And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 

And loved him, with that love which was her doom. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 117 

60 Then the great knight, the darling of the court, 
' Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall 
Stept with all grace, and not with half disdain 
Hid under grace, as in a smaller time. 
But kindly man moving among his kind: 
65 Whom they with meats and vintage of their best 
' And talk and minstrel melody entertain'd. 

And much they ask'd of court and Table Round, 
And ever well and readily answer'd he: 
But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, 
70 Suddenly speaking of the wordless man, 
^ Heard from the Baron that, ten years before, 
The heathen caught and reft him of his tongue. 
*'He learnt and warn'd me of their fierce design 
Against my house, and him they caught and maim'd; 
75 But I, my sons, and little daughter fled 
[ Prom bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods 
By the great river in a boatman's hut. 
Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke 
The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill." 

^0 ''0 there, great lord, doubtless," Lavaine said, 
rapt 
By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth 
Toward greatness in its elder, ''you have fought. 
tell us — for we live apart — you know 
Of Arthur's glorious wars." And Lancelot spoke 

85 And answer'd him at full, as having been 
With Artliur in the fight which all day long 
Bang by the white mouth of the violent Glem; 
And in the four loud battles by the shore 



118 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Of Duglas ; that on Bassa ; then the war 

That thunder'd in and out the gloomy skirts 290 

Of Oelidon the forest ; and again 

By castle Gurnion, where the glorious King 

Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, 

Carv'd of one emerald centr'd in a sun 

Of silver rays, that lighten'd as he breathed; 2 

And at Caerleon had he help'd his lord, 

When the strong neighings of the wild white Horse 

Set every gilded parapet shuddering; 

And up in Agned-Cathregonion too, 

And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, 300 

Where many a heathen fell; "and on the mount 

Of Badon I myself beheld the King 

Charge at the head of all his Table Round, 

And all his legions crying Christ and him. 

And break them ; and I saw him, after, stand 3 

High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 

Red as the rising sun with heathen blood. 

And seeing me, with a great voice he cried, 

'They are broken, they are broken!' for the King, 

However mild he seems at home, nor cares 310 

For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts — 1 

For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs 

Saying,, his knights are better men than he — 

Yet in this heathen war the fire of God 

Fills him : I never saw his like : there lives 315 

No greater leader." 

While he utter'd this, j 

Low to her own heart said the lily maid. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 119 

'*Save your great self, fair lord;" and when he fell 

( From talk of war to traits of pleasantry — 

) Being mirthful he, but in a stately kind — 
She still took note that when the living smile 
Died from his lips, across him came a cloud 
Of melancholy severe, from which again, 

f Whenever in her hovering to and fro 

> The lily maid had striven to make him cheer, 
There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
Of manners and of nature : and she thought 
That all was nature, all, perchance, for her. 
And all night long his face before her lived, 

3 As when a painter, poring on a face. 
Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face. 
The shape and colour of a mind and life, 
Lives for his children, ever at its best 

5 And fullest ; so the face before her lived. 
Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep. 
Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought 

t She needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. 

First as in fear, step after step, she stole 
Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating : 
Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, 
^'This shield, my friend, where is it?" and Lavaine 

^ Past inward, as she came from out the tower. 

i5 There to his proud horse Lancelot turn'd, and 
smooth 'd 
The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. 
Half- envious of the flattering hand, she drew 



120 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Nearer and stood. He look'd, and more amazed 

Than if seven men had set upon him, saw 

The maiden standing in the dewy light. 350 

He had not dream'd she was so beautiful. 

Then came on him a sort of sacred fear, 

For silent, tho' he greeted her, she stood 

Eapt on his face as if it were a God's. 

Suddenly flash'd on her a wild desire, 355 

That he should wear her favour at the tilt. 

She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 

*'Fair lord, whose name I know not — noble it is, 

I well believe, the noblest — will you wear 

My favour at this tourney?" "Nay," said he, sec 

''Fair lady, since I never yet have worn 

Favour of any lady in the lists. 

Such is my wont, as those, who know me, know*" 

"Yea, so," she answer'd; "then in wearing mine 

Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord, 3«5 

That those who know should know you." And he 

turn'd 
Her counsel up and down within his mind, 
And found it true, and answer'd, "True, my child. 
Well, I will wear it : fetch it out to me : 
What is it?" and she told him "A red sleeve 370 

Broider'd with pearls," and brought it: then he 

bound 
Her token on his helmet, with a smile 
Saying, "I never yet have done so much 
For any maiden living," and the blood 
Sprang to her face and fill'd her with delight; 375 

But left her all the paler, when Lavaine 



11 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 121 

Eeturning brought the yet-unblazon'd shield, 
His brother's; which he gave to Lancelot, 

^ Who parted with his own to fair Elaine : 

K) "Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield 
In keeping till I come." ''A grace to me," 
She answer 'd, ''twice to-day. I am your squire!" 
Whereat Lavaine said, laughing, ''Lily maid, 
For fear our people call you lily maid 

J5 In earnest, let me bring your colour back ; 
Once, twice, and thrice: now get you hence to bed:" 
So kiss'd her, and Sir Lancelot his own hand. 
And thus they moved away: she stay'd a minute, 

^ Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there — 

K) Her bright hair blown about the serious face 
Yet rosy-kindled with her brother's kiss — 
Paused by the gateway, standing near the shield 
In silence, while she watch 'd their arms far-off 

- Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. 

)5 Then to her tower she climb'd, and took the shield, 
There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. 

Meanwhile the new companions past away 
Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs, 
^ To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight 
)o Not far from Camelot, now for forty years 
A hermit, who had pray'd, labour'd and pray'd. 
And ever labouring had scoop'd himself 
In the white rock a chapel and a hail 
On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave, 
^)5 And cells and chambers : all were fair and dry ; 
The green light from the meadows underneath 



122 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Struck up and lived along the milky roofs ; 
And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 
And poplars made a noise of falling showers. 
And thither wending there that night they bode. 

But when the next day broke from underground, 
And shot red fire and shadows thro' the cave, 
They rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode away: 
Then Lancelot saying, ''Hear, but hold my name 
Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake," 4i5 

Abash'd Lavaine, whose instant reverence. 
Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise. 
But left him leave to stammer, ''Is it indeed?" 
And after muttering "The great Lancelot," 
At last he got his breath and answer 'd, "One, 420 

One have I seen — that other, our liege lord. 
The dread Pendragon, Britain's King of kings, 
Of whom the people talk mysteriously. 
He will be there — then were I stricken blind 
That minute, I might say that I had seen." • 425, 

So spake Lavaine, and when they reach'd the lists 
By Oamelot in the meadow, let his eyes 
Eun thro' the peopled gallery which half round 
Lay like a rainbow fall'n upon the grass, 
Until they found the clear-faced King, who sat 43o 

Robed in red samite, easily to be known, 1 

Since to his crown the golden dragon clung, I 

And down his robe the dragon writhed in gold. 
And from the carven-work behind him crept 
Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make 435 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 123 

Arms for his chair, while all the rest of them 
Thro' knots and loops and folds innumerable 
Fled ever thro' the woodwork, till they found 
' The new design wherein they lost themselves, 
m Yet with all ease, so tender was the work : 
And, in the costly canopy o'er him set, 
Blazed the last diamond of the nameless king. 

Then Lancelot answer 'd young Lavaine and said, 
, ''Me you call great: mine is the firmer seat, 
.45 The truer lance : but there is many a youth 
Now crescent, who will come to all I am 
And overcome it; and in me there dwells 
No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
. Of greatness to know well I am not great : 
50 There is the man." And Lavaine gaped upon him 
As on a thing miraculous, and anon 
The trumpets blew ; and then did either side, 
They that assail'd, and they that held the lists, 
. Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move, 
55 Meet in the midst, and there so furiously 
Shock, that a man far-off might well perceive, 
If any man that day were left afield, 
The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms 
And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw 
;6o Which were the weaker; then he hurl'd into it 
Against the stronger : little need to speak 
Of Lancelot in his glory I King, duke, earl, 
Count, baron — whom he smote, he overthrew. 

But in the field were Lancelot's kith and kin, 
65 Ranged with the Table Round that held the lists. 



124 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Strong men, and wrathful that a stranger knight 

Should do and almost overdo the deeds 

Of Lancelot; and one said to the other, *'Lo! 

What is he? I do not mean the force alone — 

The grace and versatility of the man! 47, 

Is it not Lancelot?" ''When has Lancelot worn 

Favour of any lady in the lists? 

Not such his wont, as we, that know him, know." 

*'How then? who then?" a fury seized them all, 

A fiery family passion for the name 475 

Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. 

They couch'd their spears and prick'd their steeds, 

and thus, 
Their plumes driv'n backward by the wind they 

made 

In moving, all together down upon him 
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North-sea, 48o 

Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 
Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark. 
And him that helms it, so they overbore 
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear 4S5 

Down-glancing lamed the charger, and a spear 
Prick'd sharply his own cuirass, and the head 
Pierced thro' his side, and there snapt, and remain'd. 

Then Sir Lavaine did well and worshipf uUy ; 
He bore a knight of old repute to the earth, 490 

And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. 
He up the side, sweating with agony, got, 
But thought to do while he might yet endure, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 135 

And being lustily holpen by the rest, 

His party, — tho' it seem'd half-miracle 

To those he fought with, — drave his kith and kin, 

And all the Table Eound that held the lists, 

Back to the barrier ; then the trumpets blew 

Proclaiming his the prize, who wore the sleeve 

> Of scarlet, and the pearls; and all the knights, 
His party, cried, *' Advance and take thy prize 
The diamond;" but he answer'd, ''Diamond me 

I No diamonds! for God's love, a little air! 
Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! 

> Hence will I, and I charge you, follow me not." 

He spoke, and vanish'd suddenly from the field 
With young Lavaine into the poplar grove. 
There from his charger down he slid, and sat, 

( Gasping to Sir Lavaine, ''Draw the lance-head:" 

) "Ah my sweet lord Sir Lancelot," said Lavaine, 
"I dread me, if I draw it, you will die." 
But he, "I die already with it: draw — 
Draw," — and Lavaine drew, and Sir Lancelot gave 
A marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, 

5 And half his blood burst forth, and down he sank 
For the pure pain, and wholly swoon 'd away. 
Then came the hermit out and bare him in. 
There stanch'd his wound; and there, in daily 

doubt 
Whether to live or die, for many a week 

Hid from the wide world's rumour by the grove 
Of poplars with their noise of falling showers. 
And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. 



126 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists, 
His party, knights of utmost North and West, 
Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles, 
Came round their great Pendragon, saying to him, 
*'Lo, Sire, our knight, thro' whom we won the day. 
Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize 
Untaken, crying that his prize is death." 
'* Heaven hinder," said the King, ''that such an one, 5: 
So great a knight as we have seen to-day — 
He seem'd to me another Lancelot — 
Yea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot — 
He must not pass uncared for. Wherefore, rise, 

Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. m 
Wounded and wearied needs must he be near. 

1 charge you that you get at once to horse. 

And, knights and kings, there breathes not one of you I 

Will deem this prize of ours is rashly given : 

His prowess was too wondrous. We will do him 5^ 

No customary honour: since the knight 

Came not to us, of us to claim the prize. 

Ourselves will send it after. Eise and take 

This diamond, and deliver it, and return. 

And bring us where he is, and how he fares, f>^ 

And cease not from your quest until ye find." 

So saying, from the carven flower above. 
To which it made a restless heart, he took. 
And gave, the diamond: then from where he sat 
At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, 55| 

With smiling face and frowning heart, a Prince 
In the mid might and flourish of his May, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 127 

Gawaiu, surnamed The Courteous, fair and strong, 
And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint 

>55 And Gareth, a good knight, but therewithal 
Sir Modred's brother, and the child of Lot, 
Nor often loyal to his word, and now 
Wroth that the King's command to sally forth 
In quest of whom he knew not, made him leave 

>6o The banquet, and concourse of knights and kings. 

So all in wrath he got to horse and went ; 
While Arthur to the banquet, dark in mood, 
Past, thinking, *'Is it Lancelot who hath come 
Despite the wound he spake of, all for gain 

'65 Of glory, and hath added wound to wound. 
And ridd'n away to die?" So fear'd the King, 
And, after two days' tarriance there, return'd. 
Then when he saw the Queen, embracing ask'd, 
*'Love, are you yet so sick?" ''Nay, lord," she said. 

70 *'And where is Lancelot?" Then the Queen amazed, 
**Was he not with you? won he not your prize?" 
*'Nay, but one like him." ''Why that like was he." 
And when the King demanded how she knew, 

' Said, "Lord, no sooner had ye parted from us, 

75 Than Lancelot told me of a common talk 

That men went down before his spear at a touch, 
But knowing he was Lancelot; his great name 
Conquer'd ; and therefore would he hide his name 
From all men, ev'n the King, and to this end 

'30 Had made the pretext of a hindering wound. 
That he might joust unknown of all, and learn 
If his old prowess were in aught decay 'd; 



128 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And added, 'Our true Arthur, when he learns, 

Will well allow my pretext, as for gain 

Of purer glory.' " 585 

Then replied the King : 
*'Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been, 
In lieu of idly dallying with the truth. 
To have trusted me as he hath trusted thee. 
Surely his King and most familiar friend 
Might well have kept his secret. True, indeed, 69o 
Albeit I know my knights fantastical, 
So fine a fear in our large Lancelot 
Must needs have moved my laughter : now remains 
But little cause for laughter: his own kin 
111 news, my Queen, for all who love him, this ! — 595 
His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him ; 
So that he went sore wounded from the field : 
Yet good news too : for goodly hopes are mine 
That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. 
He wore, against his wont, upon his helm eoo 

A sleeve of scarlet, broider'd with great pearls. 
Some gentle maiden's gift." 

*'Yea, lord/' she said, 
''Thy hopes are mine," and saying that, she choked 
And sharply turn'd about to hide her face. 
Past to her chamber, and there flung herself 605 

Down'on the great King's couch, and writhed upon it. 
And clench'd her fingers till they bit the palm, 
And shriek'd out ''Traitor" to the unhearing wall. 
Then flash 'd into wild tears, and rose again. 
And moved about her palace, proud and pale. «io 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 129 

Gawain the while thro' all the region round 
Rode with his diamond, wearied of the quest, 
Touch 'd at all points, except the poplar grove, 
And came at last, tho' late, to Astolat: 

615 Whom glittering in enamell'd arms the maid 

Glanced at, and cried, *^What news from Camelot, 

lord? 
What of the knight with the red sleeve?" ''He 

won." 
''I knew it," she said. ''But parted from the jousts 
Hurt in the side," whereat she caught her breath; 

620 Thro' her own side she felt the sharp lance go; 
Thereon she smote her hand: wellnigh she swoon'd: 
And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, came 
The Lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince 
Reported who he was, and on what quest 

625 Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find 
The victor, but had ridd'n a random round 
To seek him, and had wearied of the search. 
To whom the Lord of Astolat, "Bide with us. 
And ride no more at random, noble Prince! 

630 Here was the knight, and here he left a shield; 
This will he send or come for : furthermore 
Our son is with him; we shall hear anon. 
Needs must we hear." To this the courteous Prince 

^ Accorded with his wonted courtesy, 

C35 Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it, 

And stay'd; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine: 
Where could be found face daintier? then her shape 
From forehead down to foot, perfect — again 

> From foot to forehead exquisitely turn'd: 



130 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

** Well -—if I bide, lo! this wild flower for me!" 64o 

And oft they met among the garden yews, 

And there he set himself to play upon her 

With sallying wit, free flashes from a height 

A.bove her, graces of the court, and songs, 

Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden eloquence tib 

And amorous adulation, till the maid 

Eebell'd against it, saying to him, "Prince, 

loyal nephew of our noble King, 

Why ask you not to see the shield he left. 

Whence you might learn his name? Why slight your 65o 

King, 
And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove 
No surer than our falcon yesterday. 
Who lost the hern we slipt her at, and went 
To all the winds?" **Nay, by mine head," said he, 
"I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, 655 

damsel, in the light of your blue eyes; 
But an ye will it let me see the shield." 
And whei;! the shield was brought, and Gawain saw 
Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crown'd with gold, 
Kamp in the field, he smote his thigh, and mock'd: 660 
' * Eight was the King ! our Lancelot ! that true man ! ' ' 
*'And right was I," she answer'd merrily, "I, 
Who dream'd my knight the greatest knight of all." 
'*And if /dream'd," said Gawain, ''that you love 
This greatest knight, your pardon ! lo, ye know it ! 665 
Speak therefore: shall I waste myself in vain?" 
Full simple was her answer, ''What know I? 
My brethren have been all my fellowship ; 
And I, when often they have talk'd of love, 



I 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 131 



670 Wish'd it had been my mother, for they talk'd, 
Meseem'd of what they knew not; so myself — 
I know not if I know what true love is, 
But if I know, then, if I love not him, 
I knoiv there is none other I can love." 

.675 "Yea, by God's death," said he, '*ye love him well. 
But would not, knew ye what all others know. 
And whom he loves." "So be it," cried Elaine, 
And lifted her fair face and moved away : 
But he pursued her, calling, "Stay a little! 

680 One golden minute's grace! he wore your sleeve: 
Would he break faith with one I may not name? 
Must our true man change like a leaf at last? 
Nay — like enow: why then, far be it from me 
To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves ! 

685 And, damsel, for I deem you know full well 

I AVhere your great knight is hidden, let me leave 
My quest with you; the diamond also: here! 
For if you love, it will be sweet to give it; 
And if he love, it will be sweet to have it 

680 From your own hand; and whether he love or not, 
A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well 
A thousand times! — a thousand times farewell! 
Yet, if he love, and his love hold, we two 
May meet at court hereafter: there, I think, 

615 So ye will learn the courtesies of the court, 
We two shall know each other." 

Then he gave, 
And slightly kiss'd the hand to which he gave, 
The diamond, and all wearied of the quest 



132 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Leapt on his horse, and carolling as he went 

A true-love ballad, lightly rode away. 700 

Thence to the court he past; there told the King 
What the King knew, "Sir Lancelot is the knight." 
And added, ''Sir, my liege, so much I learnt; 
But fail'd to find him, tho' I rode all round 
The region : but I lighted on the maid 705 

Whose sleeve he wore; she loves him; and to her, 
Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, 
I gave the diamond: she will render it; 
For by mine head she knows his hiding-place." 

The seldom-frowning King frown'd, and replied, 7io 
''Too courteous truly! ye shall go no more 
On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget 
Obedience is the courtesy due to kings." 

He spake and parted. Wroth, but all in awe, 
For twenty strokes of the blood, without a word, 7i5 
Linger'd that other, staring after him ; 
Then shook his hair, strode off, and buzz'd abroad 
About the maid of Astolat, and her love. 
All ears were prick'd at once, all tongues were loosed : 
"The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lancelot, 720 

Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat." 
Some read the King's face, some the Queen's, and all 
Had marvel what the maid might be, but most 
Predoom'd her as unworthy. One old dame 
Came suddenly on the Queen with the sharp news. 725 
She, that had heard the noise of it before, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 133 

But sorrowing Lancelot should have stoop'd so low, 
f Marr'd her friend's aim with pale tranquillity. 

So ran the tale like fire about the court, 
730 Fire in dry stubble a nine-days' wonder flared: 
Till ev'n the knights at banquet twice or thrice 
Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, 
And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid 
^ Smiled at each other, while the Queen, who sat 
735 With lips severely placid, felt the knot 

Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen 
Crush'd the wild passion out against the floor 
Beneath the banquet, where the meats became 
As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. 
f 

740 But far away the maid in Astolat, 
Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept 
The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart. 
Crept to her father, while he mused alone. 
Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said, 

745 '^ Father, you call me wilful, and the fault 
Is yours who let me have my will, and now. 
Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits?" 
"Nay," said he, ^'surely. " ''Wherefore, let me 

hence," 
She answer'd, "and find out our dear Lavaine." 

750 *'Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine: 
Bide," answer'd he: "we needs must hear anon 
Of him, and of that other." "Ay," she said, 
"And of that other, for I needs must hence 
And find that other, wheresoe'er he be, 

756 And with mine own hand give his diamond to him. 



134 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Lest I be found as faithless in the quest 

As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me. 

Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 

Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden's aid. 76o 

The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, 

My father, to be sweet and serviceable 

To noble knights in sickness, as ye know, 

When these have worn their tokens : let me hence 

I pray you." Then her father nodding said, 765 

*'Ay, ay, the diamond: wit ye well, my child, 

Eight fain were I to learn this knight were whole, 

Being our greatest : yea, and you must give it — 

And sure I think this fruit is hung too high 

For any mouth to gape for save a queen's — 770 

Nay, I mean nothing: so then, get you gone. 

Being so very wilful you must go." 

Lightly, her suit allow'd, she slipt away. 
And while she made her ready for her ride, 
Her father's latest word humm'd in her ear, 77B 

''Being so very wilful you must go," 
And changed itself and echo'd in her heart, 
''Being so very wilful you must die." 
But she was happy enough and shook it oflP, 
As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us ; 78o 

And in her heart she answer 'd it and said, 
*'What matter, so I help him back to life?" 
Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide 
Eode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs 
To Camelot, and before the city-gates 786 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 135 

ame on her brother with a happy face 
aking a roan horse caper and curvet 
or pleasure all about a field of flowers : 
Whom when she saw, "Lavaine," she cried, 

( '^Lavaine, 

K) How fares my lord Sir Lancelot?" He amazed, 
*' Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot! 
How know ye my lord's name is Lancelot?" 
But when the maid had told him all her tale. 
Then turn'd Sir Torre, and being in his moods 

» Left them, and under the strange-statued gate. 
Where Arthur's wars were render'd mystically. 
Past up the still rich city to his kin. 
His own far blood, which dwelt at Oamelot ; 

! And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove 

)0 Led to the caves : there first she saw the casque 
Of Lancelot on the wall : her scarlet sleeve, 
Tho' carved and cut, and half the pearls away, 
Stream'd from it still; and in her heart she laugh'd, 
Because he had not loosed it from his helm, 

y5 But meant once more perchance to tourney in it. 
And when they gain'd the cell wherein he slept. 
His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands 
Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream 
Of dragging down his enemy made them move. 

to Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn, 
Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 
Utter'd a little tender dolorous cry. 
The sound not wonted in a place so still 
Woke the sick knight, and while he roU'd his eyes 

15 Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, 



136 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

''Your prize the diamond sent you by the King:" 

His eyes glisten'd: she fancied ''Is it for me?" 

And when the maid had told him all the tale 

Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest 

Assign 'd to her not worthy of it, she knelt s; 

Full lowly by the corners of his bed, 

And laid the diamond in his open hand. 

Her face was near, and as we kiss the child 

That does the task assigned, he kiss'd her face. * 

At once she slipt like water to the floor. 

''Alas," he said, "your ride hath wearied you. 

Rest must you have." "]S^o rest for me," she said; 

''Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest." 

What might she mean by that? his large black eyes, 

Yet larger thro' his leanness, dwelt upon her, 83 

Till all her heart's sad secret blazed itself 

In the heart's colours on her simple face; 

And Lancelot look'd and was perplext in mind, 

And being weak in body said no more; 

But did not love the colour; woman's love, 83) 

Save one, he not regarded, and so turn'd 

Sighing, and feign'd sleep until he slept. 

Then rose Elaine and glided thro' the fields, 
And past beneath the weirdly-sculptured gates 
Far up the dim rich city to her kin ; si 

There bode the night: but woke with dawn, and past 
Down thro' the dim rich city to the fields. 
Thence to the cave : so day by day she past 
In either twilight ghost-like to and fro 
Gliding, and every day she tended him. $i\ 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 137 

And likewise many a night : and Lancelot 
Would, tho' he call'd his wound a little hurt 
Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times 
Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem 

^ Uncourteous, even he : but the meek maid 
Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him 
Meeker than any child to a rough nurse. 
Milder than any mother to a sick child, 
And never woman yet, since man's first fall, 

$5 Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 
Upbore her; till the hermit, skill'd in all 
The simples and the science of that time, 
Told him that her fine care had saved his life. 
And the sick man forgot her simple blush, 

m Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine, 
Would listen for her coming and regret 
Her parting step, and held her tenderly. 
And loved her with all love except the love 
Of man and woman when they love their best, 

i65 Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 
In any knightly fashion for her sake. 
And peradventure had he seen her first 
She might have made this and that other world 
Another world for the sick man ; but now 

70 The shackles of an old love straiten'd him. 
His honour rooted in dishonour stood. 
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Yet the great knight in his mid -sickness made 
Full many a holy vow and pure resolve. 
m These, as but born of sickness, could not live: 



138 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

For when the blood ran lustier in him again, 

Full often the bright image of one face, 

Making a treacherous quiet in his heart, 

Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. 

Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace 

Beam'd on his fancy, spoke, he answer'd not, 

Or short and coldly, and she knew right well 

What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant 

She knew not, and the sorrow dimm'd her sight, 

And drave her ere her time across the fields 

Far into the rich city, where alone 

She murmur'd, '*Vain, in vain: it cannot be. 

He will not love me: how then? must I die?" 

Then as a little helpless innocent bird. 

That has but one plain passage of few notes. 

Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 

For all an April morning, till the ear 

Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid 

Went half the night repeating, *'Must I die?'* 

And now to right she turn'd, and now to left. 

And found no ease in turning or in rest ; 

And "Him or death," shemutter'd, ''death or him," 

Again and like a burthen, "Him or death." 

But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole, 
To Astolat returning rode the three. 
There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self 
In that wherein she deem'd she look'd her best. 
She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought 
"If I be loved, these are my festal robes. 
If not, the victim's flowers before he fall." 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 139 

And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid 
That she should ask some goodly gift of him 
For her own self or hers; ''and do not shun 
To speak the wish most near to your true heart ; 

^ Such service have ye done me, that I make 
My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I 
In mine own land, and what I will I can." 
Then like a ghost she lifted up her face. 
But like a ghost without the power to speak. 

>. And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish, 
And bode among them yet a little space 
Till he should learn it ; and one morn it chanced 
He found her in among the garden yews. 
And said, ''Delay no longer, speak your wish, 

^ Seeing I go to-day:" then out she brake: 
"Going? and we shall never see you more. 
And I must die for want of one bold word." 
"Speak: that I live to hear," he said, "is yours." 
Then suddenly and passionately she spoke: 

!^ "I have gone mad. I love you: let me die." 
"Ah, sister," answer 'd Lancelot, "what is this?" 
And innocently extending her white arms, 
"Your love," she said, "your love — to be your wife." 
And Lancelot answer 'd, "Had I chosen to wed, 

) I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine : 

; But now there never will be wife of mine." 
"No, no," she cried, "I care not to be wife. 
But to be with you still, to see your face. 
To serve you, and to follow you thro' the world." 

\i And Lancelot answer'd, "Nay, the world, the world, 

I3 All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart 



140 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue 

To blare its own interpretation — nay, 

Full ill then should I quit your brother's love. 

And your good father's kindness." And she said, 

*'Not to be with you, not to see your face — 

Alas for me then, my good days are done." 

*'Nay, noble maid," he answer 'd, '*ten times nay! 

This is not love: but love's first flash in youth, 

Most common: yea, I know it of mine own self: 

And you yourself will smile at your own self 

Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life 

To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age: 

And then will I, for true you are and sweet 

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood. 

More specially should your good knight be poor, 

Endow you with broad land and territory 

Even to the half my realm beyond the seas. 

So that would make you happy: furthermore, 

Ev'n to the death, as tho' ye were my blood, 

In all your quarrels will I be your knight. 

This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, 

And more than this I cannot." 

While he spoke 
She neither blush'd nor shook, but deathly-pale 
Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied : 
**0f all this will I nothing;" and so fell. 
And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. 

• Then spake, to whom thro' those black walls of yew 
Their talk had pierced, her father: '^Ay, a flash. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 141 

5 I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. 
Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot. 
I pray you, use some rough discourtesy 
To blunt or break her passion." 

Lancelot said, 
*^That were against me: what I can I will;" 

And there that day remain 'd, and toward even 
Sent for his shield : full meekly rose the maid, 
Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield; 
Then, when she lieard his horse upon the stones, 
Unclasping flung the casement back, and looked 

5 Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. 
And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound ; 
And she by tact of love was well aware 
That Lancelot knew that she was looking at Lixn. 
And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his haAd, 

) Nor bade farewell, but sadly rode away. 
This was the one discourtesy that he used. 

So in her tower alone the maiden sat: 
His very shield was gone ; only the case. 
Her own poor work, her empty labour, left. 

) But still she heard him, still his picture formed 
And grew between her and the pictured wall. 
Then came her father, saying in low tones, 
"Have comfort," whom she greeted quietly. 
Then came her brethren saying, *^ Peace to thee, 

) Sweet sister," whom she answer 'd with all calm. 
But when they left her to herself again, 
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 



142 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Approaching thro' the darkness, call'd; the owls 
Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt 
Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms 9s 

Of evening, and the meanings of the wind. 

And in those days she made a little song, 
And called her song "The Song of Love and Death," 
And sang it : sweetly could she make and sing. 

"Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain; lo 
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

"Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: 
Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. 

love, if death be sweeter, let me die. lo 

"Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, 
Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, 

1 know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

"I fain would follow love, if that could be; 
I needs must follow death, who calls for me; 
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die." 

High with the last line scaled her voice, and this. 
All in a fiery dawning wild with wind 
That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and 

thought 

With shuddering, "Hark the Phantom of the house lo 
That ever shrieks before a death," and call'd 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 143 

The father, and all three in hurry and fear 
Ran to her, and lo ! the blood-red light of dawn 
Flared on her face, she shrilling, ''Let me die!" 

50 And when we dwell upon a word we know, 
Repeating, till the word we know so well 
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why. 
So dwelt the father on her face, and thought 
''Is this Elaine?" till back the maiden fell, 

15 Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, 
Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. 
At last she said, "Sweet brothers, yesternight 
I seem'd a curious little maid again, 
As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, 

:o And when ye used to take me with the flood 
Up the great river in the boatman's boat. 
Only ye would not pass beyond the cape 
That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt 
Your limit, oft returning with the tide. 

5 And yet I cried because ye would not pass 
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood 
Until we found the palace of the King. 
And yet ye would not; but this night I dream'd 
That I was all alone upon the'flood, 

} And then I said, 'Now shall I have my will:' 
And there I woke, but still the wish remain'd. 
So let me hence that I may pass at last 
Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, 
Until I find the palace of the King. 

) There will I enter in among them all. 
And no man there will dare to mock at me; 



I 



144 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, 

And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me ; 

Gawain, who bade a thousand farewells to me, 

Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bade me one : 105< 

And there the King will know me and my love. 

And there the Queen herself will pity me, 

And all the gentle court will welcome me. 

And after my long voyage I shall rest!" 

*' Peace," said her father, *'0 my child, ye seem 105^ 

Light-headed, for what force is yours to go 

So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye look 

On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all?" 

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move, 
And bluster into stormy sobs and say, loei 

*'I never loved him: an I meet with him, 
I care not howsoever great he be. 
Then will I strike at him and strike him down. 
Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead. 
For this discomfort he hath done the house," loe 

To whom the gentle sister made reply, 
*'Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth. 
Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault 
Not to love me, than it is mine to love 
Him of all men who seems to me the highest." ion 

^'Highest?" the father answer'd, echoing 
"highest?" 
(He meant to break the passion in her) *'nay. 
Daughter, I know not what you call the highest ; 
But this I know, for all the people know it, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 145 

075 He loves the Queen, and in an open shame : 
And she returns his love in open shame; 
If this be high, what is it to be low?" 

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat : 
^' Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I 

380 For anger : these are slanders : never yet 
Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 
He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is my glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain : so let me pass, 

)85 My father, howsoe'er I seem to you. 
Not all unhappy, having loved God's best 
And greatest, tho' my love had no return: 
Yet, seeing you desire your child to live, 
' Thanks, but you work against your own desire ; 

®o For if I could believe the things you say 
I should but die the sooner ; wherefore cease. 
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man 
Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die." 

So when the ghostly man had come and gone, 
95 She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven. 
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised 
j|j, A letter, word for word; and when he ask'd 
*'Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord? 
Then will I bear it gladly;" she replied, 
30 *'For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world. 
But I myself must bear it." Then he wrote 
The letter she devised; which being writ 
And folded, **0 sweet father, tender and true. 



146 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Deny me not," she said-— **ye never yet 

Denied my fancies — this, however strange, iios 

My latest : lay the letter in my hand 

A little ere I die, and close the hand 

Upon it; I shall guard it even in death. 

And when the heat is gone from out my heart, 

Then take the little bed on which I died 

For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's 

For richness, and me also like the Queen 

In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. 

And let there be prepared a chariot-bier 

To take me to the river, and a barge ini 

Be ready on the river, clothed in black. 

I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. 

There surely I shall speak for mine own self, 

And none of you can speak for me so well. 

And therefore let our dumb old man alone ns 

Go with me, he can steer and row, and he 

Will guide me to that palace, to the doors." 

She ceased : her father promised ; whereupon 
She grew so cheerful that they deem'd her death 
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. 1121 

But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh 
Her father laid the letter in her hand. 
And closed the hand upon it, and she died. 
So that day there was dole in Astolat. 



But when the next sun brake from underground, 1 
Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows, 
AccomiDanying, the sad chariot-bier 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 147 

Past like a shadow thro' the field, that shone 
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, 

135 Paird all its length in blackest samite, lay. 
There sat the lifelong creature of the house, 
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck, 
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 
So those two brethren from the chariot took 

140 And on the black decks laid her in her bed, 
Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung 
The silken case with braided blazonings. 
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her 
''Sister, farewell for ever," and again 

145 "Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears. 
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, 
Oar'd by the dumb, went upward with the flood — • 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter — all her bright hair streaming down — 

150 And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 

Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white 
All but her face, and that clear-featured face 
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead, 
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled. 

155 That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved 
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last 
The price of half a realm, his costly gift. 
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow, 
With deaths of others, and almost his own, 

1160 The nine-years-f ought-f or diamonds : for he saw 

One of her house, and sent him to the Queen 

Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed 



148 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

With such and so unmoved a majesty 

She might have seem'd her statue, but that he, 

Low-drooping till he wellnigh kiss'd her feet j^g 

For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 

The shadow of some piece of pointed lace. 

In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, 

And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. 

All in an oriel on the summer side, uy^ 

Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream. 
They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter 'd, "Queen, 
Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy. 
Take, what I had not won except for you. 
These jewels, and make me happy, making them nn 
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth. 
Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's 
Is tawnier than her cygnet's: these are words: 
Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin 
In speaking, yet grant my worship of it nso 

Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words 
Perchance, we both can pardon : but, my Queen, 
I hear of rumours flying thro' your court. 
Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife. 
Should have in it an absoluter trust ngg 

To make up that defect: let rumours be: 
When did not rumours fly? these, as I trust ! 

That you trust me in your own nobleness, 
I may not well believe that you believe." 

While thus he spoke, half-turn'd away, the Queen 1190 
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 149 

Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, 
Till all the place whereon she stood was green ; 
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand 
ii95 Received at once and laid aside the gems 
There on a table near her, and replied : 

*'It may be, I am quicker of belief 
Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. 
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. 

.200 This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill, 
It can be broken easier. I for you 
This many a year have done despite and wrong 
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts 

V I did acknowledge nobler. What are these? 

305 Diamonds for me ! they had been thrice their worth 
Being your gift, had you not lost your own. 
To loyal hearts the value of all gifts 
Must vary as the giver's. Not for me ! 

s For her ! for your new fancy. Only this 

1210 Grant me, I pray you: have your Joys apart. 
I doubt not that however changed, you keep 
So much of what is graceful : and myself 
Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy 

I In which as Arthur's Queen I move and rule : 

1315 So cannot speak my mind. An end to this ! 
A strange one ! yet I take it with Amen. 
So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls ; 
Deck her with these ; tell her, she shines me down : 
An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's 

(1220 Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck 
as much fairer — as a faith once fair 



150 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Was richer than these diamonds — hers not mine — • 

Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, 

Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will — 

She shall not have them." 1325 

Saying which she seized. 
And, thro' the casement standing wide for heat, 
Flung them, and down they flash'd, and smote the 

stream. 
Then from the smitten surface flash'd, as it were. 
Diamonds to meet them, and they passed away. 
Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain is^ 

At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, 
Close underneath his eyes, and right across 
Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge 
Whereon the lily maid of Astolat 
Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. ' 1335 

But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away 
To weep and wail in secret ; and the barge 
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 
There two stood arm'd, and kept the door; to whom, 
All up the marble stair, tier over tier, 1240 

Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd 
"What is it?" but that oarsman's haggard face. 
As hard and still as is the face that men 
Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks 
On some cliff-side, appall'd them, and they said, 1245 
"He is enchanted, cannot speak — and she. 
Look how she sleeps — the Fairy Queen, so fair! 
Yea, but how pale ! what are they? flesh and blood? 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 151 

Or come to take the King to Fairyland? 
1250 For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, 
But that he passes into Fairyland." 

While thus they babbled of the King, the King 
Came girt with knights : then turn'd the tongueless 

man 
From the half -face to the full eye, and rose 
1265 And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 
So Arthur bade the meek Sir Percivale 
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid ; 
And reverently they bore her into hall. 
Then came the fine Gawain and wonder'd at her, 
1260 And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 
. And last the Queen herself, and pitied her: 
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 
. Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all: 

"Most noble lord. Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
1265 I, sometime calPd the maid of Astolat, 

Come, for you left me taking no farewell. 

Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 

I loved you, and my love had no return, 
' And therefore my true love has been my death. 
1270 And therefore to our Lady Guinevere, 

And to all other ladies, I make moan : 

Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 

Pray for my soul thou too. Sir Lancelot, 
'' As thou art a knight peerless." 

Thus he read; 
1275 And ever in the reading, lords and dames 



152 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Wept, looking often from his face who read 

To hers which lay so silent, and at times, 

So touch 'd were they, half -thinking that her lips, 

Who had devised the letter, moved again. 

Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all : 1280 

''My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear, 

Know that for this most gentle maiden's death 

Right heavy am I ; for good she was and true, 

But loved me with a love beyond all love 

In women, whomsoever I have known. i285 

Yet to be loved makes not to love again ; 

Not at my years, however it hold in youth. 

I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave 

No cause, not willingly, for such a love : 

To this I call my friends in testimony, 1J90 

Her brethren, and her father, who himself 

Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, 

To break her passion, some discourtesy 

Against my nature : what I could, I did. 

I left her and I bade her no farewell ; 1295 

Tho', had I dreamt the damsel would have died, 

I might have put my wits to some rough use, 

And help'd her from herself." 

Then said the Queen 
(Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm), 
'' Ye might at least have done her so much grace, 1300 
Fair lord, as would have help'd her from her death." 
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, 
He adding, 

*^ Queen, she would not be content 



LANCELOT AND EI^AINE 153 

Save that I wedded her, which could not be. 

1305 Then might she follow me thro' the world, she ask'd ; 
It could not be. I told her that her love 
Was but the flash of youth, would darken down 

J To rise hereafter in a stiller flame 

Toward one more worthy of her — then would I, 

1310 More specially were he, she wedded, poor, 
Estate them with large land and territory 
In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas. 
To keep them in all joyance: more than this 
I could not; this she would not, and she died." 

1315 He pausing, Arthur answer'd, '*0 my knight, 
It will be to thy worship, as my knight. 
And mine, as head of all our Table Kound, 
To see that she be buried worshipf uUy. " 

So toward that shrine which then in all the realm 
L330 Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went 
The marshall'd Order of their Table Round, 
And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see 
The maiden buried, not as one unknown. 
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, 
1325 And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. 
And when the knights had laid her comely head 
Low in the dust of half -forgotten kings, 
Then Arthur spake among them, *'Let her tomb 
Be costly, and her image thereupon, 
1330 And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 
Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 
And let the story of her dolorous voyage 



154 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

For all true hearts be blazon'd on her tomb 
In letters gold and azure!" which was wrought 
Thereafter ; but when now the lords and dames ' 1335 
And people, from the high door streaming, brake 
Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 
Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, 
Drew near, and sigh'd in passing, *' Lancelot, 
Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love." mo 

He answer'd with his eyes upon the ground, 
*'That is love's curse; pass on, my Queen, for- 
given." 
But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, 
Approach'd him, and with full affection said, 

'^Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have 1345 
Most joy and most affiance, for I know 
What thou hast been in battle by my side, 
And many a time have watch 'd thee at the tilt 
Strike down the lusty and long-practised knight. 
And let the younger and unskill'd go by 1350 

To win his honour and to make his name, 
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man 
Made to be loved ; but now I would to God, 
Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, 
Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it 1355 

seems. 
By God for thee alone, and from her face, 
If one may judge the living by the dead. 
Delicately pure and marvellously fair, 
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man 
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons isoo 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 155 

Born to the glory of thy name and fame, 

My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake." 

Then answer 'd Lancelot, '*Fair she was, my King, 
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. 

1365 To doubt her fairness were to want an eye. 
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart — 

^ Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 

Could bind him, but free love will not be bound." 

''Free love, so bound, were freest," said the King. 

1370 ''Let love be free; free love is for the best: 
And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, 
What should be best, if not so pure a love 
Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee 
She fail'd to bind, tho' being, as I think, 

1375 Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know." 

And Lancelot answer'd nothing, bat he went, 
And at the inrunning of a little brook 
Sat by the river in a cove, and watch 'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 

1380 And saw the barge that brought her moving down. 
Far-off, a blot upon tho stream, and said 
Low in himself, "Ah, simple heart and sweet, 
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy soul? 

1885 Ay, that will I. Farewell too — now at last — 
Farewell, fair lily. 'Jealousy in love?' 
Not rather dead love's liarsh heir, jealous pride? 
Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love. 



156 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

May not your crescent fear for name and fame 

Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes? u 

Why did the King dwell on my name to me? 

Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, 

Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake 

Caught from his mother's arms — the wondrous one 

Who passes thro' the vision of the night — 1305 

She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns 

Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn 

She kiss'd me saying, 'Thou art fair, my child, 

As a king's son,' and often in her arms 

She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere. i- 

Would she had drown'd me in it, where'er it be! 

For what am I? what profits me my name 

Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it : 

Pleasure to have it, none ; to lose it, pain ; 

Now grown a part of me : but what use in it? 1- 

To make men worse by making my sin known? 

Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great? 

Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 

Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break 

These bonds that so defame me : not without 1 

She wills it: would I, if she will'd it? nay. 

Who knows? but if I would not, then may God, 

I pray him, send a sudden Angel down 

To seize me by the hair and bear me far, 

And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, v 

Among the tumbled fragments of the hills." 

So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain. 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, 
First made and latest left of all the knights, 
Told, when the man was no more than a voice 
In the white winter of his age, to those 
5 With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 

For on their march to westward, Bedivere, 
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host. 
Heard in his tent the meanings of the King : 

'*I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
10 I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields. 
But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. 
me ! for why is all around us here 
As if some lesser god had made the world, 
15 But had not force to shape it as he would, 
Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
And enter it, and make it beautiful? 
Or else as if the world were wholly fair. 
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
20 And have not power to see it as it is : 

Perchance, because we see not to the close ; — 
For I, being simple, thought to work His will, 
And have but stricken with the sword in vain ; 
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend 

157 



158 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm \ 

Eeels back into the beast, and is no more. 
My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death : 
Nay — God my Christ — I pass but shall not die." 

Then, ere that last weird battle in the west, 
There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill'd : 

In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
Went shrilling, '^Hollow, hollow all delight! 
Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
Farewell ! there is an isle of rest for thee. 35 

And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 
Their season in the night and wail their way 
From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 40 
Shrill'd; but in going mingled with dim cries 
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills, 
As of some lonely city sack'd by night. 
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call'd, 45 

**Who spake? A dream. light upon the wind, 
Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these dim cries 
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me?" 

This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake : 50 

**0 me, my King, let pass whatever will. 
Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field; 
But in their stead thy name and glory cling 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 169 

To all high places like a golden cloud 
5 For ever : but as yet thou shalt not pass. 
Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man; 
And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise — 
I hear the steps of Modred in the west, 
^» And with him many of thy people, and knights 
Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 
Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 
Right well in heart they know thee for the King. 
Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 

)5 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
*'Far other is this battle in the west 
Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth. 
And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome, 

' Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall, 

?o And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine 
To war against my people and my knights. 
The king who fights his people fights himself. 
And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke 

" That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 

7h Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
Thro' this blind haze, which ever since I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hath folded in the passes of the world." 

' Then rose the King and moved his host by night, 
80 And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league, 

Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse — 

A land of old upheaven from the abyss 



160 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

By fire, to sink into the abyss again ; 

Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, 

And the long mountains ended in a coast 85 

Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 

The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 

There the pursuer could pursue no more, 

And he that fled no further fly the King ; 

And there, that day when the great light of heaven 90 

Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year, 

On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 

Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 

Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west. 

A death white mist slept over sand and sea : 95 

Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 

Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 

With formless fear; and ev'n on Arthur fell 

Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 

For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 100 

And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew ; 

And some had visions out of golden youth. 

And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 

Look in upon the battle ; and in the mist 

Was many a noble deed, many a base, 105 

And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 

And ever and anon with host to host 

Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail 

hewn. 
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
Of battleaxes on shattered helms, and shrieks no 

After the Christ, of those who falling down 
Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist; 



the' PASSING OF ARTHUR 161 

And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, 
Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies, 
115 Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs 
In that close mist, and cryings for the light, 
Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 

Last, as by some one deathbed after wail 
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 

120 Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 
Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
A dead hush fell ; but when the dolorous day 
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew 

125 The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 
Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field 
Of battle : but no man was moving there ; 
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, 
Nor yet of heathen ; only the wan wave 

130 Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 

Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 

Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, 

And shiver'd brands that once had fought with 

Eome, 
And rolling far along the gloomy shores 

135 The voice of days of old and days to be. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
And whiter than the mist that all day long 
Had held the field of battle was the King : 

*'Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the 
world, 



1G2 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And wastes the narrow realm whereon Ave move, ho 

And beats upon the faces of the dead, 

My dead, as tho' they had not died for me? — 

Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n 

Confusion, till I know not what I am, 

Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King, m5 

Behold, I seem but King among the dead." 

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere: '^My King, 
King everywhere ! and so the dead have kings, 
There also will I worship thee as* King. 
Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live 19 

Who love thee ; but who hates thee, he that brought 
The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
Modred unharm'd, the traitor of thine house." 

Then spake the King: *'My house hath been my 
doom. 
But call not thou this traitor of my house n 

Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 
My house are rather they who sware my vows, 
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me King. 
And well for thee, saying in my dark hour, 
When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd, 160 

That quick or dead thou boldest me for King. 
King am I, whatsoever be their cry ; 
And one last act of knighthood shalt thou see 
Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the King 
Made at the man : then Modred smote his liege 
Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword 
Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow. 



« 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 163 

Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 

170 So all day long the noise of battle roU'd 
Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 
Until King Arthur's Table, man by man. 
Had fall'n in Lyonesse about their lord, 
King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, 

175 The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross. 
That stood on a dark strait of barren land: 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 

180 Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
''The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 

185 They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 
Shall never more, at any future time, 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 

190 I perish by this people which I made,^^ 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more; but, let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 

195 Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 

Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 



164 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 

Eose up from out the bosom of the lake, 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 

Holding the sword — and how I row'd across 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king ; 

And, wheresoever I am sung or told 

In af tertime, this also shall be known : 

But now delay not ; take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middl'e mere : 

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word." 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
''It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm — 
A little thing may harm a wounded man ; 210 

Yet I thy best will all perform at full, 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 

So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept. 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs. 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 215 

Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping 

down 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock. 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, sao 

And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon. 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 165 

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
05 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd 
530 Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 
There in the many-knotted waterflags, 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
835 ''Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? 
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
''I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

240 To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 
''Thou hast betray 'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
For surer sign had foUow'd, either hand, 

M5 Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 

2r>o Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
Across the ridgo, and paced beside the mere, 



168 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud : 

''And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note. 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth. 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done? 
What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept, 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms. 
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills. ' 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all the people, winning reverence 
But now much honour and much fame were lost. 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
And hid Excalibur the second time. 
And so strode back slov/ to the wounded King. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 167 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
**What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
*'I heard the water lapping on the crag, 
285 And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: 
"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 
Authority forgets a dying king, 

290 Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 

That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 
In whom should meet the oflBces of all, 
Thou wouldst botray me for the precious hilt ; 

295 Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice. 
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 

300 I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran. 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword, 
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
305 Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon. 

And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arcli, 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 



310 



315 



168 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

By night, with noises of the Northern Sea, 
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish 'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 
*^Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
*'Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 320 

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw. 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die. 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 325 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish 'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard; 330 
*^My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight. 
And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 335 

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 169 

And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 
And would have spoken, but he found not words ; 
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd. King Arthur panted hard, 

5 Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ''Quick, quick ! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd. 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 

5 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang' d round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, 

And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 
5 Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by those 



170 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them 



rose 



A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 

And, as it were one voice, an agony 

Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 

All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 

Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmur'd Arthur, "Flace me in the barge." 
So to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his 

hands, 
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 
And dropping bitter tears against a brow 
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white 3 
And colourless, and like the withered moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls— 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne— were parch'd with dust; 
Or clotted into points and hanging loose, 
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
So like a shattered column lay the King; 
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in'rest 
From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 171 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere . 

J **Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance. 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 

Such times have been not since the light that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world. 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 

'5 And the days darken round me, and the years. 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge: 
**The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pure ! but thou. 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

^5 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

^-0 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 



1'?'2 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

But now farewell. I am going a long way 

With these thou seest — if indeed I go 4i 

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)— 

To the island-valley of Avilion; 

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. 

Kor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 

Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 48. 

And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.'' 

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 435 

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn. 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 44o 

But when that moan had past for evermore. 
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn 
Amazed him, and he groan'd, ''The King is gone." 
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, 
**From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 446 

Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb 
The last hard footstep of that iron crag; 
Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
''He passes to be King among the dead, 
And after healing of his grievous wound 450 ( 

He comes again ; but— if he come no more — 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 173 

me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, 
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed 
On that high day, when, clothed with living light, 
455 They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?" 

Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world. 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
460 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
Around a king returning from his wars. 

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw. 
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
465 Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, 
Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light. 
And the new sun rose bringing the new year. 



MARIANA 

*' Mariana in the moated grange." 

Meaiurefor Measure. 

With blackest moss the flower-plots 
Were thickly crusted, one and all: 
The rusted nails fell from the knots 

That held the pear to the gable-wall. 
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: 
Unlif ted was the clinking latch ; 
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, *'My life is dreary, 

He Cometh not," she said; 

She said, "I am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I were dead!" 

Her tears fell with the dews at even ; 

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ; 
She could not look on the sweet heaven. 

Either at morn or eventide. 
After the flitting of the bats. 

When thickest dark did trance the sky. 
She drew her casement curtain by. 
And glanced athwart the glooming flats. 
She only said, *'The night is dreary, 

He Cometh not," she said; 

She said, ''I am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I were dead!" 

Upon the middle of the night. 

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow : 

174 



MARIANA 175 

The cock sung out an hour ere light : 
From the dark fen the oxen's low 
Came to her: without hope of change, 
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, 
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn 
About the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, ''The day is dreary, 

He Cometh not," she said; 
She said, ''I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead!" 

About a stone-cast from the wall 

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, 
And o'er it many, round and small, 

The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. 
Hard by a poplar shook alway, 
AU silver-green with gnarled bark : 
For leagues no other tree did mark 
The level waste, the rounding gray. 
She only said, ''My life is dreary, 

He Cometh not," she said; 

She said, "I am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I were dead!" 

And ever when the moon was low. 

And the shrill winds were up and away. 
In the white curtain, to and fro. 

She saw the gusty shadow sway. 
But when the moon was very low. 

And wild winds bound within their cell. 

The shadow of the poplar fell 



176 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Upon lier bed, across her brow. 

She only said, ''The night is dreary, 

He Cometh not," she said; 
She said, ''I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead!" eo 

All day within the dreamy house. 

The doors upon their hinges creak'd; 
The blue fly sung in the pane ; the mouse 

Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, 
Or from the crevice peer'd about. e 

Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors, 
Old footsteps trod the upper floors. 
Old voices called her from without. 
She only said, ''My life is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, "I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead!" 

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, 

The slow clock ticking, and the sound 
Which to the wooing wind aloof 75 

The poplar made, did all confound 
Her sense ; but most she loathed the hour 
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay 
Athwart the chambers, and the day 
Was sloping toward his western bower. so 

Then, said she, "I am very dreary, 

He will not come," she said; 

She wept, "I am aweary, aweary. 

Oh God, that I were dead!" 



I 



1 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 177 

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 

In the silken sail of infancy, 

The tide of time flow'd back with me, 

The forward-flowing tide of time ; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Anight my shallop, rustling thro' 
The low and bloomed foliage, drove 
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove 
The citron-shadows in the blue: 
By garden porches on the brim, 
The costly doors flung open wide. 
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim, 
And broider'd sofas on each side: 

In sooth it was a goodly time. 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard 
The outlet, did I turn away 
The boat-head down a broad canal 
From the main river sluiced, where all 
The sloping of^tho moon-lit sward 
Was damask-work, and deep inlay 



178 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Of braided blooms unmown, which crept 
Adown to where the water slept. 

A goodly place, a goodly time, 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

A motion from the river won 

Kidged the smooth level, bearing on ss 

My shallop thro' the star-strown calm, 

Until another night in night 

I enter'd, from the clearer light, 

Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm. 

Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb ^ 

Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome 

Of hollow boughs. — A goodly time. 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 



I 



Still onward ; and the clear canal 45 

Is rounded to as clear a lake. 

From the green rivage many a fall 

Of diamond rillets musical. 

Thro' little crystal arches low 

Down from the central fountain's flow 5o 

Fall'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake 

The sparkling flints beneath the prow. 

A goodly place, a goodly time. 

For it was in the golden prime 

Of good Haroun Alraschid. 55 

Above thro' many a bowery turn 
A walk with vary-colour'd shells 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 179 

Wander'd engrain'd. On either side 
All round about the fragrant marge 
From fluted vase, and brazen urn 
In order, eastern flowers large, 
Some dropping low their crimson bells 
Half -closed, and others studded wide 

With disks and tiars, fed the time 

With odour in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Far off, and where the lemon grove 
In closest coverture upsprung, 
The living airs of middle night 
Died round the bulbul as he sung; 
Not he; but something which possess 'd 
The darkness of the world, delight, 
Life, anguish, death, immortal love, 
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, 

Apart from place, withholding time, 

But flattering the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Black the garden-bowers and grots 
Slumbered: the solemn palms were ranged 
Above, unwooM of summer wind: 
A sudden splendour from behind 
Flush'd yi the leaves with rich gold-green, 
And, flowing rapidly between 
Their interspaces, counterchanged 
The level lake with diamond-plots 
Of dark and bright. A lovely time. 



180 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haronn Alraschid. 

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, 

Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, 90 

Grew darker from that under-flame. 

So, leaping lightly from the boat 

With silver anchor left afloat, 

In marvel whence that glory came 

Upon me, as in sleep I sank 95 

In cool soft turf upon the bank, 

Entranced with that place and time, 

So worthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Thence thro' the garden I was drawn— 100 

A realm of pleasance, many a mound. 

And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn 

Full of the city's stilly sound. 

And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round 

The stately cedar, tamarisks, iq6 

Thick rosaries of scented thorn. 

Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks 

Graven with emblems of the time. 

In honour of the golden prime 

Of good Haroun Alraschid. 11c 

With dazed vision unawares 
From the long alley's latticed shade 
Emerged, I came upon the great 
Pavilion of the Caliphat. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 181 

Right to the carven cedarn doors, 
Flung inward over spangled floors, 
Broad-based flights of marble stairs 
Ran up with golden balustrade, 
After the fashion of the time, 
And humour of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

The fourscore windows all alight 
As with the quintessence of flame, 
A million tapers flaring bright 
From twisted silvers look'd to shame 
The hollow-vaulted dark, and streamed 
Upon the mooned domes aloof 
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd 
Hundreds of crescents on the roof 

Of night new-risen, that marvellous time 

To celebrate the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Then stole I up, and trancedly- 
Gazed on the Persian girl alone, 
Serene with argent-lidded eyes 
Amorous, and lashes like to rays 
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl 
Tressed with redolent ebony, 
In many a dark delicious curl. 
Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone ; 
The sweetest lady of the time. 
Well worthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 



182 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Six columns, three on either side, 

Pure silver, underpropt a rich ub 

Throne of the massive ore, from which 

Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold, 

Engarlanded and diaper'd 

With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. 

Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd i6o 

With merriment of kingly pride, 

Sole star of all that place and time, 

I saw him — in his golden prime, 
The Good Haroun Alraschid. 



THE POET 

The poet in a golden clime was born. 

With golden stars above ; 
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
The love of love. 

He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, 5 

He saw thro' his own soul. 
The marvel of the everlasting will, 
An open scroll. 

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded 

The secretest walks of fame : lo 

The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed 
And wing'd with flame. 

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue, 
And of so fierce a flight. 



THE POET 183 

15 From Oalpe unto Caucasus they sung, 
Filling with light 

And vagrant melodies the winds which bore 

Them earthward till they lit; 
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower, 
30 The fruitful wit 

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew 

Where'er they fell, behold, 
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew 
A flower all gold, 

25 And bravely furnish 'd all abroad to fling 
The winged shafts of truth. 
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring 
Of Hope and Youth. 

So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, 
30 Tho' one did fling the fire. 

Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams 
Of high desire. 

Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world 
Like one great garden show'd, 
35 And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurl'd, 
Rare sunrise flow'd. 

And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise 

Her beautiful bold brow. 
When rites and forms before his burning eyes 
w Melted like snow. 



184 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

There was no blood upon her maiden robes 

Sunn'd by those orient skies; 
But round about the circles of the globes 
Of her keen eyes 

And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame 45 

Wisdom, a name to shake 
All evil dreams of power — a sacred name. 
And when she spake, 

Her words did gather thunder as they ran, 

And as the lightning to the thunder 50 

Which follows it, riying the spirit of man, 
Making earth wonder. 

So was their meaning to her words. No sword 

Of wrath her right arm whirl 'd. 
But one poor poet's scroll, and with Ms word 55 

She shook the world. 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
PART I 

On either side the river lie 
Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky ; 
And thro' the field the road runs by 

To many-tower'd Camelot; 
And up and down the people go, 
Gazing where the lilies blow 



1 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT 185 

Bound an island there below, 
The island of Shalott. 

10 jWillows whiten, aspens quiver. 
Little breezes dusk and shiver 
Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
By the island in the river 

Flowing down to Camelot. 
15 Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 

Overlook a space of flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers 
The Lady of Shalott. 

By the margin, willow- veil'd 
20 Slide the heavy barges trail'd 

By slow horses; and unhail'd 
The shallop flitteth silken-saiPd 

Skimming down to Camelot : 
But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
25 Or at the casement seen her stand? 

Or is she known in all the land. 
The Lady of Shalott? 

Only reapers, reaping early 
In among the bearded barley, 
so Hear a song that echoes cheerly 

From the river winding clearly, 

Down to tower'd Camelot: 
And by the moon the reaper weary. 
Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
35 Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy 

Lady of Shalott." 



186 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

PART II 

There she weaves by night and day 

A magic web with colours gay. 

She has heard a whisper say, 

A curse is on her if she stay *o 

To look down to Camelot. 
She knows not what the curse may be, 
And so she weWeth steadily, 
And little other care hath she, 

The Lady of Shalott. 45 

And moving thro' a mirror clear 
That hangs before her all the year. 
Shadows of the world appear. 
There she sees the highway near 

Winding down to Camelot : 50 ' 

There the river eddy whirls, 
And there the surly village-churls, 
And the red cloaks of market girls, 

Pass onward from Shalott. 

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, 55 

An abbot on an ambling pad. 
Sometimes a curly* shepherd-lad. 
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad. 

Goes by to tower'd Camelot: 
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue co 

The knights come riding two and two : 
She hath no loyal knight and true. 

The Lady of Shalott. 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT ISi 

But in her web she still delights 
«5 To weave the mirror's magic sights, 

For often thro' the silent nights 
A funeral, with plumes and lights 

And music, went to Camelot: 
Or when the moon was overhead, 
70 Came two young lovers lately wed; 

''I am half sick of shadows,'' said 
The Lady of Shalott. 

PART III 

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves. 
He rode between the barley-sheaves, 
75 The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 

And flamed upon the brazen greaves 

Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
A red-cross knight for ever kneel 'd 
To a lady in his shield, 
80 That sparkled on the yellow field. 

Beside remote Shalott. 

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free. 

Like to some branch of stars we see 

Hung in the golden Galaxy. 
85 The bridle bells rang merrily 

As he rode down to Camelot: 

And from his blazon 'd baldric slung 

A mighty silver bugle hung, 

And as he rode his armour rung, 
90 Beside remote Shalott. 



188 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

All in the blue unclouded weather 
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, 
The helmet and the helmet-feather 
Burn'd like one burning flame together, 

As he rode down to Camelot. 95 

As often thro' the purple night, , 

Below the starry clusters bright. 
Some bearded meteor, trailing light. 

Moves over still Shalott. 



His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; 100 

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; 
From underneath his helmet flow'd 
His coal-black curls as on he rode. 

As he rode down to Camelot. 
From the bank and from the river 105 

He flash 'd into the crystal mirror, 
'*Tirra lirra," by the river 

Sang Sir Lancelot. 



She left the web, she left the loom, 

She made three paces thro' the room, 110 

She saw the water-lily bloom, 

She saw the helmet and the plume, 

She look'd down to Camelot. 
Out flew the web and floated wide ; 
The mirror crack'd from side to side; 115 

''The curse is come upon me," cried 

The Lady of Shalott. 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT 189 

PART IV 

In the stormy east-wind straining, 
The pale yellow woods were waning, 
The broad stream in his banks complaining, 
Heavily the low sky raining 

Over tower'd Camelot; 
Down she came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote 

The Lady of Shalott. 

And down the river's dim expanse 
Like some bold seer in a trance. 
Seeing all his own mischance — 
With a glassy countenance 

Did she look to Camelot. 
And at the closing of the day 
She loosed the chain, and down she lay ; 
The broad stream bore her far away, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Lying, robed in snowy white 
That loosely flew to left and right — 
The leaves upon her falling light — 
Thro' the noises of the night 

She floated down to Camelot: 
And as the boat-head wound along 
The willowy hills and fields among, 
They heard her singing her last song, 

The Lady of Slialott. 



190 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Heard a carol, mournful, holy. 
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly. 
Till her blood was frozen slowly, 
And her eyes were darkened wholly, 

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. 
For ere she reach 'd upon the tide 
The first house by the water-side, 
Singing in her song she died. 

The Lady of Shalott, 



Under tower and balcony. 

By garden-wall and gallery, 

A gleaming shape she floated by. 

Dead-pale between the houses high, 

Silent into Camelot. 
Out upon the wharfs they came. 
Knight and burgher, lord and dame. 
And round the prow they read her name, 

The Lady of Shalott. 



Who is this? and what is here? 
And in the lighted palace near 
Died the sound of royal cheer ; 
And they cross'd themselves for fear, 

All the knights at Camelot : 
But Lancelot mused a little space ; 
He said, "She has a lovely face; 
God in his mercy lend her grace, 

TheLady of Shalott." 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 191 

THE PALACE OF ART 

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, 

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
I said, *'0 Soul, make merry and carouse, 
Dear soul, for all is well." 

5 A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish 'd brass 
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright 
From level meadow-bases of deep grass 
Suddenly scaled the light. 

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf 
10 The rock rose clear, or winding stair. 
My soul would live alone unto herself 
In her high palace there. 

And '* While the world runs round and round," I said, 
*' Reign thou apart, a quiet king, 
15 Still as, while Saturn whirls, his stedfast shade 
Sleeps on his luminous ring." 

To which my soul made answer readily : 

*' Trust me, in bliss I shall abide 
In this great mansion, that is built for me, 
20 So royal-rich and wide." 

5fC 5|C SJC 5jC *|C 3|^ 

****** 
Four courts I made. East, West and South and North, 

In each a squared lawn, wheref rom 
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth 
A flood of fountain-foam. 



192 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And round the cool green courts there ran a row 25 

Of cloisters, b^anch'd like mighty woods, 
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 
Of spouted fountain-floods. 

And round tne roofs a gilded gallery 

That lent broad verge to distant lands, 30 

Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky 
Dipt down to sea and sands. 

From those four jets four currents m one swell 

Across the mountain streamed below 
In misty folds, that floating as they fell 
Lit up a torrent-bow. 

And high on every peak a statue seem'd 

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up 
A cloud of incense of all odour steam 'd 
From out a golden cup. 

So that she thought, ''And who shall gaze upon 

My palace with unblinded eyes. 
While this great bow will waver in the sun, 
And that sweet incense rise?" 

For that sweet incense rose and never faiPd, 

And, while day sank or mounted higher. 
The light aerial gallery, golden-rail 'd, 
Burnt like a fringe of fire. 

Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced, 
Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires ^ 



THE PALACE OF ART 193 

From shadow 'd grots of arches interlaced, 

And tipt with frost-like spires. 
****** 

****** 
Full of long-sounding corridors it was, 
That over- vaulted grateful gloom, 
55 Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass, 
Well-pleased, from room to room. 

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood. 

All various, each a perfect whole 
From living Nature, fit for every mood 
60 And change of my still soul. 

For some were hung with arras green and blue, 

Showing a gaudy snmmer-morn, 
Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew 
His wreathed bugle-horn. 

65 One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand. 
And some one pacing there alone, 
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land. 
Lit with a low large moon. 

One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. 
70 You seem'd to hear them climb and fall 
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 
Beneath the windy wall. 

And one, a full-fed river winding slow 
By herds upon an endless plain, 



194 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, 75 

With shadow-streaks of rain. 

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. 

In front they bound the sheaves. Behind 
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil. 
And hoary to the wind. 

And one a foreground black with stones and slags. 

Beyond, a line of heights, and higher 
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags. 
And highest, snow and fire. 

And one, an English home — gray twilight pour'd 85 

On dewy pastures, dewy trees. 
Softer than sleep — all things in order stored, 
A haunt of ancient Peace. 



Nor these alone, but every landscape fair. 

As fit for every mood of mind, w 

Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there 
Not less than truth designed. 

Or the maid-mother by a crucifix. 

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm. 
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx 95 

Sat smiling, babe in arm. 

Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea, 
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair 



1 



THE PALACE OF ART 195 

Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; 
100 An angel look'd at her. 

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise 

A group of Houris bow'd to see 
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes 
That said, We wait for thee. 

105 Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son 
In some fair space of sloping grerehs 
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, 
And watch'd by weeping queens. 

Or hollowing one hand against his ear, 
110 To list a foot-fall, ere he saw 

The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear 
Of wisdom and of law. 

Or over hills with peaky tops engraiPd, 
And many a tract of palm and rice, 
115 The throne of Indian Cama slowly saiPd 
A summer fann'd with spice. 

Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd, 

From off her shoulder backward borne: 
From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand graspM 
120 The mild bull's golden horn. 

Or else flush'd Ganymede, his^rosy thigh 

Half-buried in the Eagle's down. 
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 
Above the pillar'd town. 



196 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Nor these alone : but every legend fair . 125 

Which the supreme Caucasian mind 
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there, 
Not less than life, design'd. 

****** 
Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung, 

Moved of themselves, with silver sound ; 130 

And with choice paintings of wise men I hung 
The royal dais round. 

For there was Milton like a seraph strong, 
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; 
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song, 135 
And somewhat grimly smiled. 

And there the Ionian father of the rest; 

A million wrinkles carved his skin; 
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast, 

From cheek and throat and chin. i4o 

Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set 

Many an arch high up did lift. 
And angels rising and descending met 
With interchange of gift. 

Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd hs 

With cycles of the human tale 
Of this wide world, the times of every land 
So wrought, they will not fail. 



THE PALACE OF ART 197 

The people here, a beast of burden slow, 
150 Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings; 
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro 
The heads and crowns of kings ; 

Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind 
All force in bonds that might endure, 
1:5 And here once more like some sick man declined, 
And trusted any cure. 

But over these she trod: and those great bells 

Began to chime. She took her throne : 
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, 
iGo To sing her songs alone. 

And thro' the topmost Oriels' coloured flame 

Two godlike faces gazed below; 
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam, 
The first of those who know. 

165 And all those names, that in their motion were 
Full-welling fountain-heads of change. 
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon 'd fair 
In diverse raiment strange : 

Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, bine. 
170 Flush'd in her temples and her eyes, 

And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew 
Eivers of melodies. 

No nightingale delighteth to prolong 
Her low preamble all alone, 



175 



180 



198 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

More than my soul to hear her echo'd song 
Throb thro' the ribbed stone; 

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, 

Joying to feel herself alive, 
Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth. 
Lord of the senses five ; 

Communing with herself: *^A11 these are mine. 

And let the world have peace or wars, 
'Tis one to me." She— when young night divine 
Crown 'd dying day with stars, 

Making sweet close of his delicious toils— ^^ 

Lit light in wreaths and anadems, 
And pure quintessences of precious oils 
In hoUow'd moons of gems, 

To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried, 

''I marvel if my still delight 
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide. 
Be flatter'd to the height. 

"0 all things fair to sate my various eyes! 

shapes and hues that please me well ! 
silent faces of the Great and Wise, 

My Gods, with whom I dwell! 

^*0 God-like isolation which art mine, 

1 can but count thee perfect gain. 

What time I watch the darkening droves of swine 

That range on yonder plain. ^^ 



190 



195 



THE PALACE OF ART 199 

**In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, 
They graze and wallow, breed and sleep ; 
And oft some brainless devil enters in, 
And drives them to the deep." 

205 Then of the moral instinct would she prate 
And of the rising from the dead. 
As hers by right of full-accomplish 'd Fate; 
And at the last she said : 

**I take possession of man's mind and deed. 
510 I care not what the sects may brawl. 
I sit as God holding no form of creed. 
But contemplating all." 

Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 
Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone, 
215 Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth. 
And intellectual throne. 

And 80 she throve and prosper'd: so three years 

She prosper'd: on the fourth she fell. 
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 
220 Struck thro' with pangs of hell. 

Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 

God, before whom ever lie bare 
The abysmal deeps of Personality, 
Plagued her with sore despair. 



200 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight 2 

The airy hand confusion wrought, 
Wrote, *'Mene, mene," and divided quite 
The kingdom of her thought. 

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude 

Fell on her, from which mood was born 
Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood 
Laughter at her self -scorn. 

*'What! is not this my place of strength," she said, 

*^My spacious mansion built for me. 
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid 
Since my first memory?" 

But in dark corners of her palace stood 

Uncertain shapes ; and unawares 
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood. 
And horrible nightmares, 

And hollow shades, enclosing hearts of flame. 

And, with dim fretted foreheads all, 
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came. 
That stood against the wall. 

A spot of dull stagnation, without light 31 

Or power of movement, seem'd my soul, 
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite 
Making for one sure goal. 

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand, 

Left on the shore ; that hears all night 25 



THE PALACE OF ART 201 

The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
Their moon-led waters white. 

A star that with the choral starry dance 
Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw 
255 The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 
EoU'd round by one fix'd law. 

Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd. 
"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall, 
**No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world: 
260 One deep, deep silence all!" 

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, 

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, 
Lay there exiled from eternal God, 
Lost to her place and name ; 

265 And death and life she hated equally, 
And nothing saw, for her despair, 
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, 
No comfort anywhere ; 

Eemaining utterly confused with fears, 
270 And ever worse with growing time, 

And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, • 

And all alone in crime : 

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round 
With blackness as a solid wall, 
276 Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound 
Of human footsteps fall. 



202 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 

In doubt and great perplexity, 
A little before moon-rise bears the low 

Moan of an unknown sea; 28o 

And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound 

Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, '*I have found 
A new land, but I die." 

She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within. » 

There comes no murmur of reply. 
What is it that will take away my sin, 
And save me lest I die?" 

So when four years were wholly finished, 

She threw her royal robes away. 200 

"Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 
** Where I may mourn and pray. 

''Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 

So lightly, beautifully built : 
Perchance I may return with others there 2 

When I have purged my guilt." 

THE LOTOS EATERS 

''Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon. " 
In the afternoon they came unto a land 
In which it seemed always afternoon. 



THE LOTOS-EATERS 203 

5 All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ; 
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

10 A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke, 
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke. 
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 

15 From the inner land : far off, three mountain-tops, 
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow. 
Stood sunset-flush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops, 
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 

The charmed sunset lingered low adown 
20 In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale 
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale 
And meadow, set with slender galingale; 
A land where all things always seem'd the same! 
25 And round about the keel with faces pale. 
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame. 
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem. 
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave 
30 To each, but whoso did receive of them, 
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave 
On alien shores ; and if his fellow spake. 



204 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; 

And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake, 

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand, 

Between the sun and moon upon the shore ; 

And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 

Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore 4c 

Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar. 

Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 

Then some one said, ''We will return no more;" 

And all at once they sang, ''Our island home 

Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam." 45 

CHORIC SONG 

I 
There is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass. 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass ; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 50 1 

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful 

skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep. 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep. 
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 55 
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. 

II 
Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness. 
And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 



THE LOTOS-EATERS 205 

While all things else have rest from weariness? 
All things have rest : why should we toil alone, 

We only toil, who are the first of things, 

And make perpetual moan, 

Still from one sorrow to another thrown: 

Nor ever fold our wings, 
5 And cease from wanderings, 
' Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; 

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 

*' There is no joy but calm!" 

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of 
things? 

Ill 

9 Lo! in the middle of the wood. 
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
With winds upon the branch, and there 
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 

> Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow 
Falls, and floats adown the air. 
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light. 
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 
Drops in a silent autumn night. 

) All its allotted length of days. 
The flower ripens in its place, 

J Eipens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 

IV 

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 



206 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Death is the end of life ; ah, why 
Should life all labour be? 
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 
And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
Let us alone. What is it that will last? 
All things are taken from us, and become 
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. 
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 
To war with evil? Is there any peace 
In ever climbing up the climbing wave? 
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
In silence ; ripen, fall and cease : 
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful 
ease. 



How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 

With half -shut eyes ever to seem 

Falling asleep in a half-dream! 

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light. 

Which will not leave the myrrh -bush on the height; 

To hear each other's whisper'd speech; 

Eating the Lotos day by day, ic 

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 

And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 

To muse and brood and live again in memory. 

With those old faces of our infancy 

Heap'd over with a mound of grass. 

Two handf uls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass ! 



THE LOTOS-EATERS 207 

VI 
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 

115 And dear the last embraces of our wives 

And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change: 
For surely now our household hearths are cold : 
Our sons inherit us : our looks are strange : 
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. 

120 Or else the island princes over-bold 

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, 
And our great deeds, as half forgotten things. 
Is there confusion in the little isle? 

125 Let what is broken so remain. 
The Gods are hard to reconcile: 
'Tis hard to settle order once again. 
There is confusion worse than death, 
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 

•1130 Long labour unto aged breath, 

Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars 

And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. 

VII 

I But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly. 

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) 

35 With half-dropt eyelid still, 
Beneath a heaven dark and holy. 
To watch tlie long bright river drawing slowly 

1 His waters from the purple hill — 
To hear the dewy echoes calling 

» From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine — 
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling: 



208 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! 
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the 
pine. 

VIII 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : 
The Lotos blows by every winding creek : 
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: 
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos- 
dust is blown. 
We have had enough of action, and of motion we, 
RoU'd to starboard, roU'd to larboard, when the 

surge was seething free. 
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam- 
fountains in the sea. 
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind. 
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. 
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are 

hurl'd 
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are 

lightly curl'd 
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleam- 
ing world: 
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring 

deeps and fiery sands. 
Clanging fights, and fiaming towns, and sinking ships, 
and praying hands. 



''OF OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS" 200 

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful 

song 
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of 

wrong. 
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong ; 
165 Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the 

soil. 
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil. 
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil ; 
Till they perish and they suffer — some, 'tis whisper'd 

— down in hell 
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, 
170 Eesting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the 

shore 
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave 

and oar; 
Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander 

more. 



*0F OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS" 

Of old sat Freedom on the heights. 

The thunders breaking at her feet : 

Above her shook the starry lights : 
She heard the torrents meet. 

There in her place she did rejoice. 

Self -gather 'd in her prophet-mind, 

But fragments of her mighty voice 
Came rolling on the wind. 



210 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Then stept she down thro' town and field 

To mingle with the human race, lo 

And part by part to men reveal'd 
The fullness of her face — 

Grave mother of majestic works, 

From her isle-altar gazing down, 

Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks i5 

And, King-like, wears the crown : 

Her open eyes desire the truth. 

The wisdom of a thousand years 
Is in them. May perpetual youth 

Keep dry their light from tears ; 20 

That her fair form may stand and shine. 

Make bright our days and light our dreams, 

Turning to scorn with lips divine 
The falsehood of extremes ! 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER 
OR, THE PICTURES 

This morning is the morning of the day, 
When I and Eustace from the city went 
To see the gardener's daughter; I and he, 
Brothers in Art ; a friendship so complete 
Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew 
The fable of the city where we dwelt. 

My Eustace might have sat for Hercules ; 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER 211 

So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. 
He, by some law that holds in love, and draws 

10 The greater to the lesser, long desired 
A certain miracle of symmetry, 
A miniature of loveliness, all grace 
Summ'd up and closed in little ;— Juliet, she 
So light of foot, so light of spirit — oh, she 

15 To me myself, for some three careless moons. 
The summer pilot of an empty heart 
Unto the shores of nothing ! Know you not 
Such touches are but embassies of love. 
To tamper with the feelings, ere he found 

20 Empire for life? but Eustace painted her, 

• And said to me, she sitting with us then, 
*'When will you paint like this?" and I replied, 
(My words were half in earnest, half in jest), 
'' 'Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived, 

25 A more ideal Artist he than all, 

Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes 
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair 
More black than ashbuds in the front of March." 
And Juliet answer 'd laughing, ''Go and see 

30 The gardener's daughter: trust me, after that, 
You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece." 
And up we rose, and on the spur we went. 
Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 

35 News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bolls ; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you liear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 



212 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Although between it and the garden lies 

A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, 40 

That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 

Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on. 

Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 

Crown'd with the minster-towers. 

The fields between 
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine, 
And all about the large lime feathers low, 
The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 

In that still place she, hoarded in herself. 
Grew, seldom seen ; not less among us lived 
Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard 50 

Of Rose, the gardener's daughter? Where was he, 
So blunt in memory, so old at heart. 
At such a distance from his youth in grief. 
That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth. 
So gross to express delight, in praise of her 55 

Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, 
And Beauty such a mistress of the world. 

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, 
Would play with flying forms and images, 
Yet this is also true, that, long before 60 

I look'd upon her, when I heard her name 
My heart was like a prophet to my heart. 
And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, 
That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, 
Born out of everything I heard and saw, 
Flutter'd about my senses and my soul ; 
And vague desires, like fitful blasts- of balm 
To one that travels quickly, made the air 



10 

I 



THE GARDENER^S DAUGHTER 213 

Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 

70 That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream 
Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, 
Unseen, is brightening to his bridal mom. 
And sure this orbit of the memory folds 
For ever in itself the day we went 

75 To see her. All the land in flowery squares, 
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, 
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud 
Drew downward : but all else of heaven was pure 
Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, 

80 And May with me from head to heel. And now, 
As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were 
The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, 
(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these) 
Kings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze, 

85 And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, 
Leaning his horns into the neighbour field. 
And lowing to his fellows. From the woods 
Came voices of the well-contented doves. 
The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, 

»o But shook his song together as he near'd 

His happy home, the ground. To left and right. 
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills ; 
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ; 
The redcap whistled; and the nightingale 

95 Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day. 
And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me, 
*'Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, 
These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they 
sing 



214 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Like poets, from the vanity of song? 

Or have they any sense of why they sing? loo 

And would they praise the heavens for what they 

have?" 
And I made answer, ''Were there nothing else 
For which to praise the heavens but only love, 
That only love were cause enough for praise." 
Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, 105 
And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd, 
We reach 'd a meadow slanting to the North ; 
Down which a well-worn pathway courted us 
To one green wicket in a privet hedge ; 
This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk 
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; 
And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew 
Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. 
The garden stretches southward. In the midst 
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. 
The garden-glasses glanced, and momently 
The twinkling laurel scattered silver lights. 

''Eustace," I said, "this wonder keeps the house.' 
He nodded, but a moment afterwards 
He cried, "Look ! look !" Before he ceased I turn'd, 120 
And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. 

For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, 
That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft— 
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape — 123 
Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood, 
A single stream of all her soft brown hair 
Pour'd on one side: the shadow of the flowers 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER 215 

Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 

130 Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist — 

Ah, happy shade — and still went wavering down, 
But, ere it touch 'd a foot, that might have danced 
The greensward into greener circles, dipt. 
And mix'd with shadows of the common ground! 

135 But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd 
Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom. 
And doubled his own warmth against her lips. 
And on the bounteous wave of such a breast 
As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 

140 She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 
So rapt, we near'd the house; but she, a Rose 
In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil. 
Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd 
Into the world without; till close at hand, 

145 And almost ere I knew mine own intent. 
This murmur broke the stillness of that air 
Which brooded round about her : 

''Ah, one rose. 
One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd, 
Were worth a hundred kisses press 'd on lips 

150 Less exquisite than thine." 

Shelook'd: but all 
Suffused with blushes — neither self-possess'd 
Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, 
Divided in a graceful quiet — paused. 
And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound 

155 Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips 
For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came, 
Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it, 



216 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And moved a^^y, and left me, statue-like, 
In act to render thanks, 

I, that whole day. 
Saw her no more, altho' I lingered there 
Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star 
Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk. 

So home we went, and all the livelong way 
With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. 
*'Now," said he, ''will you climb the top of Art. 
You cannot fail but work in hues to dim 
The Titianic Flora. Will you match 
My Juliet? you, not you, — ^the Master, Love, 
A more ideal Artist he than all." 

So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, 
Eeading her perfect features in the gloom, 
Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er. 
And shaping faithful record of the glance 
That graced the giving — such a noise of life 
Swarm 'd in the golden present, such a voice 
Call'd to me from the years to come, and such 
A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark. 
And all that night I heard the watchman peal 
The sliding season : all that night I heard 
The heavy clocks knoUing the drowsy hours. 
The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good. 
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
Distilling odors on me as they went 
To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 

Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, 
Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor 
storm 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER 217 

Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. 
Light pretexts drew me; sometimes a Dutch love 
For tulips : then for roses, moss or musk, 

190 To grace my city rooms ; or fruits and cream 
Served in the weeping elm ; and more and more 
A word could bring the colour to my cheek ; 
A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew ; 
Love trebled life within me, and with each 

195 The year increased. 

The daughters of the year, 
One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd; 
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower 
Danced into light, and died into the shade ; 
And each in passing touch 'd with some new grace 

800 Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day. 
Like one that never can be wholly known. 
Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour 
For Eustace, when I heard his deep ''I will," 
Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold 

805 From thence thro' all the worlds : but I rose up 
Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes 
Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd 
The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. 
There sat we down upon a garden mound, 

510 Two mutually enfolded ; Love, the third. 
Between us, in the circle of his arms 
Enwound us both ; and over many a range 
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers. 
Across a hazy glimmer of the west, 

516 Keveal'd their shining windows: from them clash'd 
The bells; we listen'd; with the time we play'd. 



218 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

We spoke of other things; we coursed about 
The subject most at heart, more near and near, 
Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round 
The central wish, until we settled there. 
Z^Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her. 
Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own. 
Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear. 
Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, . 
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved; 
And in that time and place she answer 'd me. 
And in the compass of three little words. 
More musical than ever came in one. 
The silver fragments of a broken voice. 
Made me most happy, faltering, '^I am thine." 

Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say 
That my desire, like all strongest hopes, 
By its own energy fulfiU'd itself. 
Merged in completion? Would you learn at full 
How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades 
Beyond all grades develop'd? and indeed 
I had not staid so long to tell you all. 
But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes, 
Holding the folded annals of my youth; 
And while I mused. Love with knit brows went 24c 

by, 

And with a flying finger swept my lips. 
And spake, "Be wise: not easily forgiven 
Are those who, setting wide the doors that bar 
The secret bridal chambers of the heart. 
Let in the day." Here, then, my words have S45 
end. 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER 219 

Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells — 
Of that which came between, more sweet than 

each, 
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves 
That tremble round a nightingale — in sighs '^ • 

\o Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance. 
Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell 
Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, 
And vows, where there was never need of vows. 
And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap 

5 Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above 
The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale 
Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars; 

^ Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit. 
Spread the light haze along the river-shores, 

And in the hollows ; or as once we met 
Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain 
Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, 

^ And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. 

But this whole hour your eyes have been intent 

3 On that veil'd picture — veil'd, for what it holds 
May not be dwelt on by the common day. 
This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul ; 

'* Make thine heart ready with thine eyes: the 
time 
Is come to raise the veil. 

Behold her there, 

) As I beheld her ere she knew my heart. 
My first, last love; the idol of my youth, 

2' The darling of my manhood, and, alas! 
Now the most blesi^ed memory of mine age. 



^^0 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON: 

ST. SIMEON STYLITES 
Altho' I be the basest of mankind, 
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, 
Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet 
For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, 
I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob. 
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, 
Have mercy. Lord, and take away my sin. 

Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, 
This not be all in vain, that thrice t^ years, i 

Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs. 
In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and* cold. 
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and 

cramps, 
A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, 
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne i 

Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and 

snow; 
And I had hoped that ere this period closed 
Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest. 
Denying not these weather-beaten limbs 
The meed of saints, the white robe and the palmr 2< 

take the meaning. Lord : I do not breathe. 
Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. 
Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still 
Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear. 
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush 'd 2,^ 
My spirit fiat before thee, 

Lord, Lord, 1 

Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES 221 

For I was strong and hale of body then ; 

And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away, 

80 Would chatter- with the cold, and all my beard 
Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon, 
I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound 
Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw 
An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. 

35 Now am I feeble grown ; my end draws nigh ; 
I hope my end draws nigh : half deaf I am. 
So that I scarce can hear the people hum 
About the column's base, and almost blind. 
And scarce can recognise the fields I know ; 

40 And both my thighs are rotted with the dew ; 
Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, 
While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, 
Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone. 
Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin. 

45 Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul. 
Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? 
Who may be made a saint, if I fail here? 
Show me the man hath suffer'd more than I. 
For did not all thy martyrs die one death? 

50 For either they were stoned, or crucified, 
Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn 
In twain beneath the ribs ; but I die here 
To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. 
Bear witness, if I could have found a way 

55 (And heedfuUy I sifted all my thought) 
More slowly-painful to subdue this home 
Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, 
I had not stinted practice, my God. 



222 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

For not alone this pillar-punishment, 
Not this alone I bore : but while I lived eo 

In the white convent down the valley there, 
For many weeks about my loins I wore 
The rope that haled the buckets from the well, 
Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose ; 
And spake not of it to a single soul, 65^ 

Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, 
Betray'd my secret penance, so that all 
My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than this 
I bore, whereof, God, thou knowest all. 

Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, 
I lived up there on yonder mountain side. 
My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay 
Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones ; 
Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice 
Black 'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes 75 
Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not. 
Except the spare chance-gift of those that came 
To touch my body and be heal'd, and live: 
And they say then that I work'd miracles, 
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind, so 

Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, God, 
Knowest alone whether this was or no. 
Have mercy, mercy! cover all my sin. 

Then, that I might be more alone with thee, 
Three years I lived upon a pillar, high 85 

Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve; 
And twice three years I crouch 'd on one that rose 
Twenty by measure ; last of all, I grew 
Twice ten long weary weary years to this. 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES 223 

eo That numbers forty cubits from the soil. 
I think that I have borne as much as this — 
Or else I dream— and for so long a time, 
If I may measure time by yon slow light, 

And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns 

95 So much — even so. 

And yet I know not well. 
For that the evil ones come here, and say, 
''Fall down, Simeon: thou hast suffered long 
For ages and for ages!" then they prate 
Of penances I cannot have gone thro', 

100 Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall. 
Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies 
That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked. 

But yet 
Bethink thee. Lord, while thou and all the saints 
Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth 

105 House in the shade of comfortable roofs. 

Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food. 
And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, 
T, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light. 
Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, 

110 To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the saints; 
Or in the night, after a little sleep, 
I wake : the chill stars sparkle ; I am wet 
With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost. 
I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back; 

»i5 A grazing iron collar grinds my neck ; 
And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross. 
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die : 
mercy, mercy! wash away my sin. 



224 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Lord, thou knowest what a man I am ; 
A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : 120 

'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; 
Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, 
That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha! 
They think that I am somewhat. What am I? 
The silly people take me for a saint, 125 

And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers : 
And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) 
Have all in all endured as much, and more 
Than many just and holy men, whose names 
Are registered and calendared for saints. 
Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. 
What is it I can have done to merit this? 
I am a sinner viler than you all. 
It may be I have wrought some miracles, 
And cured some halt and maim'd; but what of that? is 
It may be, no one, even among the saints, 
May match his pains with mine; but what of that? 
Yet do not rise ; for you may look on me. 
And in your looking you may kneel to God. 
Speak! is there any of you halt or maim'd? 140 

I think you know I have some power with Heaven 
From my long penance: let him speak his wish. 

Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me. 
They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark ! they shout 
^'St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so, 145 

God reaps a harvest in me. my soul, 
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, 
Can I work miracles and not be saved? 
This is not told of any. They were saints. 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES 225 

150 It cannot be but that I shall be saved ; 

Yea, crown 'd a saint. They shout, ' ' Behold a saint ! ' ' 
And lower voices saint me from above. 
Courage, St. Simeon! this dull chrysalis 
Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death 

155 Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now 
Sponged and made blank of crimef ul record all 
My mortal archives. 

my sons, my sons, 
I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname 
Stylites, among men; I, Simeon, 

160 The watcher on the column till the end ; 
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes ; 
I, whose bald brows in silent hours become 
Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now 
From my high nest of penance here proclaim 

165 That Pontius and Iscariot by my side 

Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, 
A vessel full of sin : all hell beneath 
Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve, 
Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. 

170 I smote them with the cross; they swarm'd again. 
In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest: 
They flapp'd my light out as I read: I saw 
Their faces grow between me and my book ; 
With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine 

175 They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, 
And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortify 
Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; 
Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast 
Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps. 



22C SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, i8o 

Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still 

Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise : 

God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit. 

Among the powers and princes of this world, 

To make me an example to mankind, iss 

Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say 

But that a time may come — ^yea, even now, 

Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs 

Of life— I say, that time is at the doors 

When you may worship me without reproach ; iso 

For I will leave my relics in your land. 

And you may carve a shrine about my dust, 

And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, 

When I am gather'd to the glorious saints. 

While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain 195 
Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike change, 
In passing, with a grosser film made thick 
These heavy, horny eyes. The end ! the end ! 
Surely the end ! What's here? a shape, a shade, 
A flash of light. Is that the angel there 200 

That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come. 
I know thy glittering face. I waited long ; 
My brows are ready. What! deny it now? 
Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ ! 
'Tisgone: 'tis here again ; the crown! the crown! 205 
So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me, 
And from it melt the dews of Paradise, 
Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankin- 
cense. 
Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints: I trust 



ULYSSES 227 

210 That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. 
Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, 

Among you there, and let him presently 

Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft. 

And climbing up into my airy home, 
215 Deliver me the blessed sacrament; 

For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, 

I prophesy that I shall die to-night, 

A quarter before twelve. 

But thou, Lord, 

Aid all this foolish people ; let them take 
230 Example, pattern : lead them to thy light. 



ULYSSES 

It little profits that an idle king. 
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 
Unequal laws unto a savage race, 

5 That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 
I cannot rest from travel : I will drink 
Life to the lees : all times I have enjoy'd 
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when 

10 Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; 
For always roaming with a hungry heart 
Much have I seen and known : cities of men. 
And manners, climates, councils, governments, 

15 Myself not least, but honoured of them all; 
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 



228 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that nntraveird world, whose margin fades so 

For ever and for ever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 85 

Little remains : but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire so 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle — 
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 36 

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
Of common duties, decent not to fail 4o 

In oflSces of tenderness, and pay 
Meet adoration to my household gods, 
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

There lies the port ; the vessel puffs her sail : 
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, 45 
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought 
with me — 



ULYSSES 229 

That ever with a frolic welcome took 

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 

Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old; 

50 Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; 
L^ath closes all : but something ere the end, 
Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks : 

55 The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the deep 
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 

60 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars, until I die. 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

65 Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 
We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we arc, we are ; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts. 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

70 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 



230 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

SIR GALAHAD 



1 



My good blade carves the casques of men, 

My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 5 

The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly, 

The horse and rider reel : 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists. 

And when the tide of combat stands, 10 

Perfume and flowers fall in showers. 

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. 

How sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On whom their favours fall ! 
For them I battle till the end, 15 

To save from shame and thrall : 
But all my heart is drawn above. 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: 
I never felt the kiss of love, 

Nor maiden's hand in mine. 20 

More bounteous aspects on me beam. 

Me mightier transports move and thrill; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 

A virgin heart in work and will. 

When down the stormy crescent goes, 25 

A light before me swims, 
Between dark stems the forest glows, 

I hear a noise of hymns : 



SIR GALAHAD 231 

Then by some secret shrine I ride ; 
30 I hear a voice but none are there ; 

The stalls are void, the doors are wide, 

The tapers burning fair. 
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 
The silver vessels sparkle clean, 
35 The shrill bell rings, the censer swings. 

And solemn chaunts resound between. 

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic bark ; 
I leap on board : no helmsman steers : 
40 I float till all is dark. 

A gentle sound, an awful light ! 

Three angels bear the holy Grail: 
With folded feet, in stoles of white, 

On sleeping wings they sail. 
45 Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! 

My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
As down dark tides the glory slides, 

And star-like mingles with the stars. 

When on my goodly charger borne 
50 Thro' dreaming towns I go. 

The cock crows ere the Christmas morn. 

The streets are dumb with snow. 
The tempest crackles on the leads. 

And, ringing, springs from brand and mail ; 
65 But o'er the dark a glory spreads, 

And gilds the driving hail. 
I leave the plain, I climb the height; 

No branchy thicket shelter yields; 



232 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

But blessed forms in whistling storms 
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. eo 

A maiden knight — to me is given 

Such hope, I know not fear ; 
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 

That often meet me here. 
I muse on joy that will not cease, es 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odours haunt my dreams ; 
And, stricken by an angel's hand, 

This mortal armour that I wear, to 

This weight and size, this heart and eyes, 

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 

The clouds are broken in the sky, 

And thro' the mountain-walls 
A rolling organ-harmony 75 

Swells up, and shakes and falls. 
Then move the trees, the copses nod, 

Wings flutter, voices hover clear : 
'*0 just and faithful knight of God! 

Ride on! the prize is near." so 

So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; 

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
AU-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide. 

Until I find the holy Grail. 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 233 
THE EAGLE 

FRAGMENT 

He clasps the crag with crooked hands ; 
Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 

The wrinkled sea benearth him crawls ; 
He watches from his mountain walls, 
And like a thunderbolt he falls. 

* 'BREAK, BREAK, BREAK" 

Break, break, break. 

On thy cold gray stones, Sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 

well for the fisherman's boy. 
That he shouts with his sister at play! 

well for the sailor lad, 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ; 
But for the touch of a vanish 'd hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break. 

At the foot of thy crags, Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 



234 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 
THE SONG OF THE BROOK 

I come from haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally, 
And sparkle out among the fern, 

To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down, 

Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorps, a little town. 

And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 

To join the brimming river, lo 

For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on for ever. 

I chatter over stony ways. 

In little sharps and trebles, 
I bubble into eddying bays, is 

I babble on the pebbles. 

With many a curve my banks I fret 

By many a field and fallow, 
And many a fairy foreland set 

With willow-weed and mallow. ^ 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on for ever. 



THE SONG OF THE BROOK 235 

I wind about, and in and out, 

With here a blossom sailing. 
And here and there a lusty trout, 

And here and there a grayling. 

And here and there a foamy flake 

Upon me, as I travel 
With many a silvery waterbreak 

Above the golden gravel, 

And draw them all along, and flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on for ever. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers ; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance. 

Among my skimming swallows ; 
I make the netted sunbeam dance 

Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 

In brambly wildernesses ; 
I linger by my shingly bars ; 

I loiter round my cresses ; 

And out again I curve and flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go. 

But I go on for ever. 




336 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

SONGS FROM *THE PRINCESS" 

The Child^s Grave 
As thro' the land at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
we fell out I know not why. 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears. 
When we fall out with those we love 

And kiss again with tears ! 
For when we came where lies the child lo 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave, 
there above the little grave. 

We kiss'd again with tears. 

The Cradle Song 

Sweet and low, sweet and low. 

Wind of the western sea. 
Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again to me; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 

Father will come to thee soon ; lo 

Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon; 



SONGS FROM *'THE PRINCESS^' 237 

Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 
15 Under the silver moon : 

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 

The Bugle Song 

The splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story : 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
5 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

hark, hear! how thin and clear. 

And thinner, clearer, farther going I 
sweet and far from cliff and scar 
10 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

love, they die in yon rich sky. 
They faint on hill or field or river: 
15 Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 

And grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 



''Tears, Idle Tears'' 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 



238 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 

And thinking of the days that are no more. 5 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. lo 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 15 

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign 'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
Death in Life, the days that are no more. 20 

A Small, Sweet Idyll 

Come down, maid, from yonder mountain 
height : 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) , 
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 5 

To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; 



SONGS FROM "THE PRINCESS'' 239 

And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 

10 Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize. 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk 
With Death and Morning on the silver horns. 
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 

15 Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice. 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: 
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down 
To find him in the valley ; let the wild 

20 Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke. 
That like a broken purpose waste in air : 
So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 

25 Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee; the children call, and I 
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound. 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 

30 The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 
And murmuring of innumerable bees. 



240 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF 
WELLINGTON 

PUBLISHED IN 1852 
I 

Bury the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation, 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty na- 
tion, 
Mourning when their leaders fall, i 

Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 

II 
Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, lo 

And the feet of those he fought for. 
Echo round his bones for evermore. 

Ill 
Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 
As fits an universal woe. 
Let the long long procession go, 15 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 
And let the mournful martial music blow ; 
The last great Englishman is low. 

IV 

Mourn, for to us he seems the last. 

Remembering all his greatness in the Past. so 

No more in soldier fashion will he greet 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 241 

With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 

friends, our chief state-oracle is mute: 

Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
25 The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 

Whole in himself, a common good. 

Mourn for the man of amplest influence. 

Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 

Our greatest yet with least pretence, 
30 Great in council and great in war. 

Foremost captain of his time, 

Eich in saving common-sense. 

And, as the greatest only are 

In his simplicity sublime. 
35 good gray head which all men knew, 

voice from which their omens all men drew, 

iron nerve to true occasion true, 

fall'n at length that tower of strength 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that 
blew! 
40 Such was he whom we deplore. 

The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 

The great World-victor's victor will be seen no 
more. 

V 

All is over and done : 
Render thanks to the Giver, 
45 England, for thy son. 
Let the bell be toU'd. 
Render thanks to the Giver, 
And render him to the mould. 



242 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Under the cross of gold 

That shines over city and river, 5o 

There he shall rest for ever 

Among the wise and the bold. 

Letthebellbe toll'd: 

And a reverent people behold 

The towering car, the sable steeds : 65 

Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds, 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be toll'd: 

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoU'd; 

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd eo 

Thro' the dome of the golden cross; 

And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 

He knew their voices of old. 

For many a time in many a clime 

His captain's-ear has heard them boom 65 

Bellowing victory, bellowing doom : 

When he with those deep voices wrought, 

Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 

With those deep voices our dead captain taught 

The tyrant, and asserts his claim 70 

In that dread sound to the great name. 

Which he has worn so pure of blame. 

In praise and in dispraise the same, 

A man of well-temper'd frame. 

civic muse, to such a name, 75 

To such a name for ages long, 

To such a name. 

Preserve a broad approach of fame. 

And ever-echoing avenues of song. 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 243 

VI 

80 Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd guest, 

With banner and with music, with soldier and with 
priest. 

With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? 

Mighty Seaman, this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea. 
85 Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 

The greatest sailor since our world began. 

Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 

To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 

For this is he 
fio Was great by land as thou by sea; 

His foes were thine; he kept us free. 

give him welcome, this is he 

Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 

And worthy to be laid by thee; 
95 For this is England's greatest son, 

He that gain'd a hundred fights. 

Nor ever lost an English gun ; 

This is he that far away 

Against the myriads of Assaye 
100 Clash'd with his fiery few and won; 

And underneath another sun. 

Warring on a later day, 

Round affrighted Lisbon drew 

The treble works, the vast designs 
105 Of his labour'd rampart-lines. 

Where he greatly stood at bay. 

Whence he issued forth anew, 

And ever great and greater grew, 



244 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Beating from the wasted vines 

Back to France her banded swarms, 

Back to France with countless blows, 

Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 

Beyond the Pyrenean pines, 

FoUow'd up in valley and glen 

With blare of bugle, clamour of men, 

Roll of cannon and clash of arma^ 

And England pouring on her foes^ 

Such a war had such a close. 

Again their ravening eagle rose 

In anger, wheel'd on Europe -shadowing wings, 12c 

And barking for the thrones of kings ; 

Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 

On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down ; 

A day of onsets of despair ! 

Dash'd on every rocky square 

Their surging charges foam'd themselves away; 

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; 

Thro' the long-tormented air 

Heaven flash'd a sudden Jubilant ray, 

And down we swept and charged and overthrew. i30| 

So great a soldier taught us there. 

What long-enduring hearts could do 

In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! 

Mighty Seaman, tender and true. 

And pure as he from taint of craven guile, i^s 

saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 

shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch a spirit among things divine, 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 245 

140 If love of country move thee there at all, 

Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

In full acclaim, 

A people's voice, 
145 The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice 

At civic revel and pomp and game. 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 
150 Eternal honour to his name. 

VII 

A people's voice! we are a people yet. 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers; 
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 

155 His Briton in blown seas and storming showers. 
We have a voice, with which to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
And keep it ours, God, from brute control; 

180 Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole. 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne. 
That sober freedom out of which there springs 

185 Our loyal passion for our temperate kings; 
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
And drill the raw world for the march of mind. 



246 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. 

But wink no more in slothful overtrust. i7o 

Remember him who led your hosts ; 

He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 

Your cannons moulder on. the seaward wall; 

His voice is silent in your council-hall 

For ever; and whatever tempests lour 175 

For ever silent ; even if they broke 

In thunder, silent ; yet remember all 

He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke; 

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 

Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; iso 

Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow 

Thro' either babbling world of high and low; 

Whose life was work, whoge language rife 

With rugged maxims hewn from life; 

Who never spoke against a foe; iss 

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 

All great self-seekers trampling on the right: 

Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named; 

Truth-lover was our English Duke; 

Whatever record leap to light m 

He never shall be shamed. 

VIII 

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 

Now to glorious burial slowly borne. 

Follow 'd by the brave of other lands. 

He, on whom from both her open hands 1^ 

Lavish Honour shower'd all her stars, 

And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 247 

Yea, let all good things await 

Him who cares not to be great, 
100 But as he saves or serves the state. 

Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 
805 Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 
210 The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands. 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail' d, 
W5 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he : his work is done. 

But while the races of mankind endure, 
lio Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure: 

Till in all lands and thro' all human story 

The path of duty be the way to glory : 
J»5 And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 

For many and many an age proclaim 

At civic revel and pomp and game. 

And when the long-illumined cities flame, 



248 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 

With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 230 

Eternal honour to his name. 

IX 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 

By some yet unmoulded tongue 

Far on in summers that we shall not see: 

Peace, it is a day of pain 335 

For one about whose patriarchal knee 

Late the little children clung: 

peace, it is a day of pain 

For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain 

Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 84o 

Ours the pain, be his the gain ! 

More than is of man's degree 

Must be with us, watching here 

At this, our great solemnity. 

Whom we see not we revere ; 245 

We revere, and we refrain 

From talk of battles loud and vain, 

And brawling memories all too free 

For such a wise humility 

As befits a solemn fane : 250 

We revere, and while we hear 

The tides of Music's golden sea 

Setting toward eternity, 

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 

Until we doubt not that for one so true 255 

There must be other nobler work to do 

Than when he fought at Waterloo, 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 249 

And Victor he must ever be. 

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
260 And break the shore, and evermore 

Make and break, and work their will ; 

Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 

Eound us, each with different powers. 

And other forms of life than ours, 
265 What know we greater than the soul? 

On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 

Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: 

The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears ; 

The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears ; 
270 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 

He is gone who seem'd so great. — 

Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 

Of the force he made his own 

Being here, and we believe him 
275 Something far advanced in State, 

And that he wears a truer crown 

Than any wreath that man can weave him. 

Speak no more of his renown. 

Lay your earthly fancies down, 
280 And in the vast cathedral leave him, 

God accept him, Christ receive him. 



I 



250 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

NORTHERN FARMER 

OLD STYLE 
I 

Wheer 'asta bean saw long and mealiggin' 'ere aloan? 
Noorse? thourt nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's 

abean an' agoan: 
Says that I moant 'a naw moor aale: but I beant a 

fool: 
Git nxa my aale, fur I beant a-gawin' to break my rule. 

II 
Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what's nawways 5 

true: 
Naw soort 0' koind o' use to saay the things that a do. 
I've 'ed my point 0' aale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere. 
An' I've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty 

year. 

Ill 

Parson's a bean loikewoise, an' a sittin' 'ere 0' my bed. 
*'The amoighty's a taakin 0' you^ to 'issen, my 10 

friend," a said. 
An' a towd ma my sins, an's toithe were due, an' I 

gied it in bond ; 
I done moy duty boy 'um, as I 'a done boy the lond. 

IV 

Larn'd a ma' bea. I reckons I 'annot sa mooch to 

larn. 
But a cast oop, thot a did, 'bout Bessy Harris's barne. 
» ou as in hour. 



NORTHERN FARMER 251 

15 Thaw a kiiaws I hallus voated wi' Squoire an* choorch 
an' staate, 
An' i' the woost o' toimes I wur niver agin the raate. 

V 

An' I hallus coom'd to 's chooch afoor moy Sally 
wur dead, 

An' 'eard 'um a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard- 
clock^ ower my 'ead, 

An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad 
summut to saay, 
20 An' I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I coom'd 
awaay. 

VI 

Bessy Harris's barne! tha knaws she laaid it to mea. 
Mowt a bean, mayhap, for she wur a bad un, shea. 
'Siver, I kep 'um, I kep 'um, my lass, tha mun 

understond ; 
I done moy duty boy 'um as I 'a done boy the lond. 

VII 

25 But Parson a cooms an' a goiis, an' a says it eiisy 

an' freea 
**The amoighty's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my 

friend," says 'ea. 
I weant saay men be loiars, thaw summun said it in 

'aaste : 
But 'e reads wonn sarmin a weeiik, an' I 'a stubb'd 

Thurnaby waiiste. 

» Cockchafer. 



252 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

VIII 

D'ya moind the waaste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was 

not born then ; 
Theer wur a boggle in it, I often 'eard 'um mysen ; 3o 
Moast loike a butter-bump,^ fur I 'eard 'um about 

an' about, 
But I stubb'd 'um oop wi' the lot, an' raaved an' 

rembled 'um out. 



IX 

Keaper's it wur; fo' they fun 'um theer a-laaid of 

'is faace 
Down i' the woild 'enemies^ afoor I coom'd to the 

plaace. 
Noaks or Thimbleby — toaner^ 'ed shot 'um as dead 35 

as a naail. 
Noaks wur 'ang'd for it oop at 'seize — but git ma 

my aale. 

X 

Dubbut loook at the waaste: theer warn't not feead 

for a cow ; 
Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' loook at it now — 
Warnt worth nowt a haacre, an' now theer's lots o' 

feead, 
Foursccor* yows upon it an' some on it down i' seead.^ 40 

XI 

Nobbut a bit on it's left, an' I mean'd to 'a stubb'd 
it at fall, 

1 Bittern. •Anemones. « One or other. < ou as in hour. * Clover. 



t 



NOflTHERN FARMER 253 

Done it ta-year I mean'd, an' runn'd plow thruff it 

an' all, 
If godamoighty an' parson 'ud nobbut let ma aloan, 
Meii, wi' haate hoonderd haacre o' Squoire's, an' 

lond o' my oan. 

XII 

45 Do godamoighty knaw what a's doing a-taakin' o' 

mea? 
I beant wonn as saws 'ere* a bean an' yonder a pea; 
An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all — a' dear a' dear! 
And I 'a managed for Squoire coom Michaelmas 

thutty year. 

XIII 

A mowt 'a taaen owd Joanes, as 'ant not a 'aapoth 

o' sense, 
50 Or a mowt 'a taaen young Kobins — a niver mended a 

fence: 
But godamoighty a moost taake mea an' taiike ma 

now 
Wi' aaf the cows to cauve an' Thurnaby hoalms to 

plow! 

XIV 

Loook 'ow quoloty smoiles when they seeas ma a 

passin' boy. 
Says to thessen naw doubt '*what a man a bea sewer- 

loy!" 
55 Fur they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin fust a 

coom'd to the 'All ; 



^54 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

I done moy duty by Squoire an' I done moy duty 
boy hall. 

XV 

Squoire's i' Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'uU 'a 

to wroite, 
For whoa's to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles 

ma quoit; 
Sartin-sewer I bea, thot a weant niver give it to 

Joanes, 
Naw, nor a meant to Eobins — a niver rembles the eo 

stoans. 

XVI 

But summun 'uU come ater mea mayhap wi' 'is 

kittle o' steam 
Huzzin' an' maazin' the blessed fealds wi' the Divil's 

oan team. 
Sin' I mun doy I mun doy, thaw loife they says is 

sweet, 
But sin' I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to 

see it. 



XVII 

What atta stannin' theer fur, an' doesn bring ma the te 

aale? 
Doctor's a 'toattler, lass, an a's hallus i' the owd 

taale ; 
I weant break rules fur Doctor, a knaws naw moor 

nor a floy ; 
Git ma my aale I tell tha, an' if I mun doy I mun 

doy. 



ii 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 255 

NORTHERN FARMER 

NEW STYLE 
I 

Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters 

awaay? 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 

'em saay. 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — Sam, thou's an ass 

for thy paains : 
Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy 

braains. 

II 
B Woa — theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam: yon's 

parson's 'ouse — 
Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eather a man 

or a mouse? 
Time to think on it then; for thou'U be twenty to 

weeak.^ 
Proputty, proputty — woa then woa — let ma 'ear 

my sen speak. 

Ill 
Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as bean a-talkin' o' 

thee; 
10 Thou's beiin talkin' to muther, an' she bean a tellin' 

it me. 
Thou '11 not marry for munny — thou's sweet upo' 

parson's lass — 
Noa — thou'll marry for luvv — an' we boath on us 

thinks tha an ass. 

1 This week. 



356 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

IV 

Seea'd her todaay goa by — Saaint's-daay — they was 

ringing the bells. 
She's a beauty thou thinks — an' soa is seoors o' gells, 
Them as 'as munny an' all — wot's a beauty? — the is 

flower as blaws. 
But proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty 

graws. 



I 



Do'ant be stunt :^ taake time: I knaws what maakes 

tha sa mad. 
Warn't I craazed fur the lasses my sen when I wur a 

lad? 
But I knaw'd a Quaiiker feller as often 'as towd ma 

this: 
*'Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer ao 

munny is!" 

VI 

An' I went wheer munny war: an' thy muther coom 

to 'and, 
Wi' lots o' munny laaid by, an' a nicetish bit o' land. 
Maaybe she warn't a beauty : — I niver giv it a thowt — 
But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass 

as 'ant nowt? 



VII 

Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weiint 'a nowt when 25 
'e's dead, 



1 Obstinate. 



NORTHERN FARMER 257 

Man be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle^ her 

bread : 
Why? fur 'e's nobbut a curate, an' weant niver git 

hissen clear, 
An' 'e maade the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd 

to the shere. 

Tin 

'An thin 'e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o' Varsity 

debt, 
ao Stook to his taail they did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 

'em yet. 
An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noan to lend 

'im a shuYV, 
Woorse nor a far-welter'd* yowe: fur, Sammy, 'e 

married fur luw. 

IX 

Luw? what's luw? thou can luw thy lass an' 'er 

munny too, 
Maakin' 'emgofitogither as they've good right to do. 
85 Couldn I luw thy muther by cause o' 'er munny 

laaid by? 
Naay — fur I luw'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it: 

reason whv. 



Ay an' thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass, 
Cooms of a gentleman bum: an' we boiith onus 
thinks tha an ass. 
1 Earn. * Or fow-welter*d,— said of a sheep lying on its back. 



258 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Woa then, proputty, wiltha? — an ass as near as mays 

nowt^ — 
Woa then, wiltha? dangtha! — the bees is as fell as 40 

owt.^ 

XI 

Break me a bit o' the esh for his 'ead, lad, out o' 

the fence ! 
Gentleman burn! what's gentleman burn? is it 

shillins an' pence? 
Proputty, proputty's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, 

I'm blest 
If it isn't the saame oop yonder, fur them as 'as it's 

the best. 

XII 

Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' 45 

steals. 
Them as 'as coats to their backs an' taakes their 

regular meals. 
Noil, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meal's to 

be 'ad. 
Taake my word for it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp 

is bad. 

XIII 

Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a bean a laazy 

lot, 
Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' whiniver munny 50 

was got. 

» Makes nothing. « TJie flies are as fierce as anytliing. 



IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ 259 

Feyther 'ad ammost nowt; leastways 'is muniiy was 

'id. 
But 'e tued an' moil'd 'issen dead, an' 'e died a 

good un, 'e did. 

XIV 

Loook thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck cooms out 

by the 'ill! 
Feyther run oop to the farm, an' I runs oop to the 

mill; 
55 An' I'll run oop to the brig, an' that thou'll live to 

see; 
And if thou marries a good un I'll leave the land to 

thee. 

XV 

Thim's my noiitions, Sammy, wheerby I means to 

stick ; 
But if thou marries a bad un, I'll leave the land to 

Dick.— 
Coom oop, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 

'im saay — 
60 Proputty, proputty, proputty — canter an' canter 

awaiiy. 

IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ 

All along the valley, stream that flashest white, 
Deepening thy voice with t1\c deepening of the night, 
All along the valley, where thy waters flow, 
I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago. 



260 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 



1 



All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day, 5* 

The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away; 
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed, 
Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead, 
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree. 
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me. lo 



THE HIGHER PANTHEISM 

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and 

the plains — 
Are not these, Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 

Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He 

seems? 
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live 

in dreams? 

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, 5 
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from 
Him? 

Dark is the world to thee : thyself art the reason why ; 
For is He not all but that which has power to feel 
''I am I"? 

Glory about thee, without thee ; and thou f ulfillest 

thy doom 
Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour lo 

and gloom. 



^'FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL" 261 

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with 

Spirit can meet — 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands 

and feet. 

God is law, say the wise; Soul, and let us rejoice, 
For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His 
voice. 

15 Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; 
For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent 
in a pool ; 

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man 

cannot see ; 
But if we could see and hear, this Vision— were it 

not He? 



"FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL'' 

Flower in the crannied wall, 

I pluck you out of the crannies, 

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

Little flower — but if I could understand 

What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

I should know what God and man is. 



26% SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

IN MEMORIAM A. H. H. 
OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII 

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 

Believing where we cannot prove ; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute; 

Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man, he knows not why. 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 

And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

Thou seemest human and divine, 

The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
Our wills are ours, we know not how; 

Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of thee, 

And thou, Lord, art more than they. 

We have but faith : we cannot know ; 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 

And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness : let it grow. 



IN MEMORIAM 265 

as Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before. 

But vaster. We are fools and slight; 
30 We mock thee when we do not fear: 

But help thy foolish ones to bear; 
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; 

What seem'd my worth since I began; 
35 For merit lives from man to man, 

And not from man, Lord, to thee. 

Forgive my grief for one removed. 

Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 
40 I find him worthier to be loved. 

Forgive these wild and wandering cries. 

Confusions of a wasted youth ; 

Forgive them where they fail in truth, 
And in thy wisdom make me wise. 

1849. . 

I 

I held it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 



264 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

But who shall so forecast the years 
And find in loss a gain to match? 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 

The far-off interest of tears? 

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 

To dance with death, to beat the ground, 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of Love, and boast, 
'* Behold the man that loved and lost, 

But all he was is overworn." 



VII 

Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street, 
Doors, where my heart was used to beat 

So quickly, waiting for a hand, 

A hand that can be clasp 'd no more — 
Behold me, for I cannot sleep. 
And like a guilty thing I creep 

At earliest morning to the door 

He is not here ; but far away 

The noise of life begins again. 
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. 



I 

5 

J 



IN MEMORIAM 265 

XI 

Calm is the morn without a sound, 

Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 

And only thro' the faded leaf 
The chestnut pattering to the ground: 

Calm and deep peace on this high wold. 

And on these dews that drench the furze. 
And all the silvery gossamers 

That twinkle into green and gold : 

Calm and still light on yon great plain 

That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
And crowded farms and lessening towers. 

To mingle with the bounding main : 

Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 

If any calm, a calm despair: 

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 

And waves that sway themselves in rest, 
And dead calm in that noble breast 

Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 

XXVII 

I envy not in any moods 

The captive void of noble rage. 

The linnet born within the cage. 
That never knew the summer woods : 



266 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

I envy not the beast that takes 

His license in the jBeld of time, 
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, 

To whom a conscience never wakes; 



Nor, what may count itself as blest, 
The heart that never plighted troth 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 

Nor any want-begotten rest. 



I hold it true, whate'er befall; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most; 

'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 



XXX 

With trembling fingers did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
A rainy cloud possessed the earth, 

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 



At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gamboU'd, making vain pretence 
Of gladness, with an awful sense 

Of one mute Shadow watching all. 



IN MEMORIAM 267 

We paused : the winds were in the beech : 
We heard them sweep the winter land; 
And in a circle hand-in-hand 

Sat silent, looking each at each. 

Then echo-like our voices rang ; 

We sung, the' every eye was dim, 

A merry song we sang with him 
Last year : impetuously we sang: 

We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 

''They rest," we said, ''their sleep is sweet," 
And silence foUow'd, and we wept. 

Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang: "They do not die 

Nor lose then* mortal sympatliy, 
Nor change to us, altho' they change; 

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail 

With gather'd power, yet the same, 
Pierces the keen seraphic flame 

Prom orb to orb, from veil to veil." 



Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn. 

Draw forth the tjheerful day from night: 
Father, touch the east, and light 

The light that shone when Hope was born. 



368 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

XXXIV 

My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live for evermore, 
Else earth is darkness at the core. 

And dust and ashes all that is; 

This round of green, this orb of flame, 
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks 
In some wild Poet, when he works 

Without a conscience or an aim. 

What then were God to such as I? 

'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 
Of things all mortal, or to use 

A little patience ere I die ; 

'Twere best at once to sink to peace. 

Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 

Of vacant darkness and to cease. 



LIV 

Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
To pangs of nature, sins of will. 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroy'd, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete; 



IN MEMORIAM 269 

That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 

That not a moth with vain desire 

Is shrivell'd in a fruitless j5re, 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

Behold, we know not anything ; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 

At last — far off — at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream : but what am I? 
An infant crying in the night : 
An infant crying for the light : 
JO And with no language but a cry. 



LXXII 

Bisest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
And howlest, issuing out of night, 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 

And lash with storm the streaming pane? 

Day, when my crown'd estate begun 
To pine in that reverse of doom, 
Which sicken'd every living bloom. 

And blurr'd the splendour of the sun; 

Who usherest in the dolorous hour 

With thy quick tears that make the rose 
Pull sideways, and the daisy close 

Her crimson fringes to the shower; 



270 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Who might'st have heaved a windless flame 
Up the deep East^ or, whispering, play'd 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 

Along the hills, yet look'd the same. 

As wan, as chill, as wild as now; 

Day, mark'd as with some hideous crime. 
When the dark hand struck down thro' time, 

And cancell'd nature's best : but thou 20 

Lift as thou may'st thy burthen'd brows 

Thro' clouds that drench the morning star, 
And whirl the ungarner'd sheaf afar. 

And sow the sky with flying boughs-, 

And up thy vault with roaring sound xs 

Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; 
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray. 

And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 



LXXVIII 

Again at Christmas did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
The silent snow possess'd the earth, 

And calmly fell our Christmas-eve : 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
No wing of wind the region swept, 
But over all things brooding slept 

The quiet sense of something lost. 



IN MEMORIAM 271 

As in the winters left behind, 

Again our ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace, 

And dance and song and hoodman-blind. 

Who show'd a token of distress? 

No single tear, no mark of pain : 

sorrow, then can sorrow wane? 
grief, can grief be changed to less? 

last regret, regret can die ! 

No — mixt with all this mystic frame, 

Her deep relations are the same. 
But with long use her tears are dry. 



xcix 
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
So loud with voices of the birds. 
So thick with lowings of the herds. 
Day, when I lost the flower of men ; 

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red 

On yon swoU'n brook that bubbles fast 
By meadows breathing of the past. 

And woodlands holy to the dead ; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
A song that slights the coming care. 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A fiery finger on the leaves ; 



272 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 
To myriads on the genial earth, 
Memories of bridal, or of birth. 

And unto myriads more, of death. 

wheresoever those may be. 

Betwixt the slumber of the poles, 
To-day they count as kindred souls ; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 



cvi 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind. 
For those that here we see no more; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 



IN MEMORIAM 273 

Eing out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 
20 But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 

The civic slander and the spite ; 

Ring in the love of truth and right. 
Ring in the common love of good. 

25 Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 
Ring out the thousand wars of old. 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
30 The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 

Ring out the darkness of the land, 
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 



cxxix 
Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, 

So far, so near in woe and weal; 

loved the most, when most I feel 
There is a lower and a higher ; 

Known and unknown; human, divine; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye; 

Dear heavenly friend that canst nut die, 
Mine, mine, for ever, over mine; 



274 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Strange friend, past, present, and to be; 

Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; lo 

Behold, I dream a dream of good. 
And mingle all the world with thee. 



I 



cxxx 

Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 

I hear thee where the waters run; 

Thou standest in the rising sun. 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

What art thou then? I cannot guess; 
But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power, 

I do not therefore love thee less : 



My love involves the love before; 

My love is vaster passion now ; ^^ 

Tho' mix'd with God and Xature thou, 

I seem to love thee more and more. 



il 



Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice; 

I prosper, circled with thy voice; 15 

I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

cxxxi 
living will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 

Kise in the spiritual rock. 
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, 



SELECTION FROM MAUD 275 

5 That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry above the conquer 'd years 
To one that with us works, and trust. 

With faith that comes of self-control, 
10 The truths that never can be proved 

Until we close with all we loved, 
And all we flow from, soul in soul. 



SELECTION FROM MAUD; A MONODRAMA 

The text of this selection is that of the first edition published in 
1837 in The Tribute, 

Oh ! that 'twere possible. 
After long grief and pain. 
To find the arms of my true-love 
Round me once again ! 

5 When I was wont to meet her 

In the silent woody places 
Of the land that gave me birth, 
We stood tranced in long embraces, 
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter, 

,0 Than anything on earth. 

A shadow flits before me— 
Not thou, but like to thee. 
Ah God ! that it were possible 
For one short hour to see 
15 The souls we loved, that they might tell us 

What and where they be. 



276 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

It leads me forth at Evening, 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

When all my spirit reels 20 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights, 

And the roaring of the wheels. 

Half the night I waste in sighs, 

In a wakeful doze I sorrow 

For the hand, the lips, the eyes — 25 

For the meeting of to-morrow, 

The delight of happy laughter, 

The delight of low replies. 

Do I hear the pleasant ditty. 

That I heard her chant of old? so 

But I wake — my dream is fled. 

Without knowledge, without pity — 

In the shuddering dawn behold. 

By the curtains of my bed. 

That abiding phantom cold. 

Then I rise : the eave-drops fall 

And the yellow- vapors choke. 

The great city sounding wide; 

The day comes — a dull red ball. 

Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke, 4o 

On the misty river-tide. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame; 

It crosseth here, it crosseth there — 



SELECTION FROM MAUD 277 

Thro' all the crowd, confused and loud, 
The shadow still the same ; 
And on my heavy eyelids 
My anguish hangs like shame. 

Alas for her that met me. 
That heard me softly call — 
Came glimmering thro' the laurels 
At the quiet even-fall. 
In the garden by the turrets 
Of the old Manorial Hall. 

Then the broad light glares and beats, 

And the sunk eye flits and fleets. 

And will not let me be. 

I loathe the squares and streets. 

And the faces that one meets. 

Hearts with no love for me ; 

Always I long to creep 

To some still cavern deep, 

And to weep and weep and weep 

My whole soul out to thee. 

Get thee hence, nor come again 
Pass and cease to move about — 
Pass, thou death-like type of pain, 
Mix not memory with doubt. 
'Tis the blot upon the brain 
That will show itself without. 

Would the happy Spirit descend 
In the chamber or the street 



278 SELECTIONS. FROM TENNYSON 

As she looks among the blest ; 

Should I fear to greet my friend, 

Or to ask her, ''Take me, sweet, 75 

To the region of thy rest." 

But she tarries in her place. 
And I paint the beauteous face 
Of the maiden, that I lost, 

In my inner eyes again, so 

Lest my heart be overborne 
By the thing I hold in scorn, 
By a dull mechanic ghost 
And a juggle of the brain. 

I can shadow forth my bride 85 

As I knew her fair and kind, 
As I woo'd her for my wife; 
She is lovely by my side 

In the silence of my life — 
'Tis a phantom of the mind. «>j 

'Tis a phantom fair and good; 
I can call it to my side. 

So to guard my life from ill, 
Tho' its ghastly sister glide 
And be moved around me still 
With the moving of the blood, 
That is moved not of the will. 

Let it pass, the dreary brow, 
Let the dismal face go by. 



THE REVENGE 279 



100 Will it lead me to the grave? 

Then I lose it : it will fly : 
Can it overlast the nerves? 

Can it overlive the eye? 
But the other, like a star, 
105 Thro' the channel windeth far 

Till it fade and fail and die. 
To its Archetype that waits. 
Clad in light by golden gates — 
Clad in light the Spirit waits 

To embrace me in the sky. 



THE REVENGE 

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET 

I 



110 



At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, 

And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying 
from far away : 

** Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty- 
three!'' 

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: '* 'Fore God I 
am no coward; 
5 But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out 
of gear, 

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but 
follow quick. 

We are six ships of the line ; can we fight with fifty- 
three?" 



280 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

II 
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville; *'I know you are 

no coward ; 

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. 1 
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick lo 

ashore. 
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my 

Lord Howard, 
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of 

Spain." 

Ill 

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war 

that day. 
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer 

heaven ; 
But Sir Eichard bore in hand all his sick men from is 

the land 
Very carefully and slow, 
Men of Bideford in Devon, 
And we laid them on the ballast down below; 
For we brought them all aboard. 
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not 20 

left to Spain, 
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of 

the Lord. 

IV 

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and 

to fight. 
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard 

came in sight, 



THE REVENGE 281 

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather 

bow. 
*' Shall we fight or shall we fly? 
Good Sir Richard, tell us now, 
For to fight is but to die I 
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be 

set." 
And Sir Richard said again : *' We be all good English 

men. 
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the 

devil. 
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet." 



Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a 
hurrah, and so 

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the 
foe, 

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety 
sick below ; 
» For half of their fleet to the right and half to the 
left were seen. 

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea- 
lane between. 

VI 

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their 

decks and laugh'd. 
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad 

little craft 
Running on and on, till delay'd 



^82 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen 4o 

hundred tons, 
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning 

tiers of guns, 
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd. 

VII 

And while now the great San Philip hung above us 

like a cloud 
Whence the thunderbolt will fall 
Long and loud, ^. 

Four galleons drew away 
From the Spanish fleet that day, 
' And two upon the larboard and two upon the star- 
board lay, 
And the battle-thunder broke from them all. 

VIII 

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought her- so 

self and went 
Having that within her womb that had left her ill 

content; 
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought 

us hand to hand, 
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and 

musqueteers, 
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that 

shakes his ears 
When he leaps from the water to the land. 55 

IX 

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far 
over the summer sea, 



THE REVENGE 283 

But never a moment ceased the fight of the. one and 
the fifty- three. 

Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high- 
built galleons came, 

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her 
battle- thunder and flame; 
) Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back 
with her dead and her shame. 

For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and 
so could fight us no more — 

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the 
world before? 

X 

For he said ''Fight on I fight on!" 
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck; 
; And it chanced that, when half of the short summer 

night was gone, 
With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck. 
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly 

dead, 
And himself he was wounded again in the side and 

the head. 
And he said ''Fight on! fight on!" 

XI 

I And the night went down, and the sun smiled out 

far over the summer sea. 
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round 

us all in a ring; 
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd 

that we still could sting, 



284 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

So they watch'd what the end would be. 

And we had not fought them in vain, 

But in perilous plight were we, 

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, 

And half of the rest of us maim'd for life 

In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate 

strife; 
And the sick men down in the hold were most of 

them stark and cold, 
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the t 

powder was all of it spent ; 
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the 

side ; 
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride, 
*'We have fought such a fight for a day and a night 
As may never be fought again ! 
We have won great glory, my men ! 
And a day less or more 
At sea or ashore. 
We die — does it matter when? 
Sink me the ship. Master Gunner— sink her, split 

her in twain ! 
Pall into the hands of God, not into the hands of g 

Spain!" 

XII 

And the gunner said ^^Ay, ay," but the seamen made 

reply: 
^^We have children, we have wives, 
And the Lord hath spared our lives. 
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to 

let us go ; 



THE REVENGE 285 

95 We shall live to fight again and to strike another 
blow." 
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to 
the foe. 

XIII 

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore 

him then, 
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Eichard 

caught at last, 
And they praised him to his face with their courtly 

foreign grace ; 
100 But he rose upon their decks, and he cried : 

''I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant 

man and true ; 
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do: 
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!" 
^ And he fell upon their decks, and he died. 

XIV 

lOB And they stared at the dead that had been so 

valiant and true. 
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so 

cheap 
That he dared her with one little ship and his 

English few; 
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they 

knew, 
But they sank his body with hohor down into the 

deep, 
no And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier 

alien crew, 



286 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her 

own; 
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke 

from sleep, 
And the water began to heave and the weather to 

moan, 
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew. 
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earth- 115 

quake grew, 
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their 

masts and their flags. 
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot- 

shatter'd navy of Spain, 
And the little Eevenge herself went down by the 

island crags 
To be lost evermore in the main. 



THE ANCIENT SAGE 

A thousand summers ere the time of Christ 

From out his ancient city came a Seer 

Whom one that loved, and honor 'd him, and yet 

Was no disciple, richly garb'd, but worn 

From wasteful living, foUow'd — in his hand 5 

A scroll of verse — till that old man before 

A cavern whence an affluent fountain pour'd 

From darkness into daylight, turn'd and spoke. 

This wealth of waters might but seem to draw 

Prom yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher, 10 

Yon summit half-a-league in air — and higher. 



THE ANCIENT SAGE 287 

The cloud that hides it — higher still, the heavens 
Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout 
The cloud descended. Force is from the heights. 
15 I am wearied of our city, son, and go 
To spend my one last year among the hills. 
What hast thou there? Some deathsong for the 

Ghouls 
To make their banquet relish? let me read. 

**How far thro' all the bloom and brake 
30 That nightingale is heard ! 

What power but the bird's could make 

This music in the bird? 
How summer-bright are yonder skies, 
And earth as fair in hue! 
15 And yet what sign of aught that lies 

Behind the green and blue? 
But man to-day is fancy's fool 

As man hath ever been. 
The nameless Power, or Powers, that rule 
Were never heard or seen." 

If thou would'st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive 
Into the Temple-cave of thine own self. 
There, brooding by the central altar, thou 
Hay'st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice. 
By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise. 
As if thou knewest, tho' thou canst not know; 
For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake 
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there 
But never yet hath dipt into the abysm, 



288 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within 

The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth, 

And in the million-millionth of a grain 

Which cleft and cleft again for evermore, 

And ever vanishing, never vanishes. 

To me, my son, more mystic than myself, 

Or even than the Nameless is to me. 

And when thou sendest thy free soul thro' heaven, 

Nor understandest bound nor boundlessness, 

Thou seest the Nameless of the hundred names. 

And if the Nameless should withdraw from all 

Thy frailty counts most real, all thy world 

Might vanish like thy shadow in the dark. 

*'And since — from when this earth began — 

The Nameless never came 
Among us, never spake with man. 

And never named the Name" — 

Thou canst not prove the Nameless, my son, 
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in, 
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone. 
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone. 
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one : 
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no 
Nor yet that thou art mortal — nay, my son. 
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee, 
Am not thyself in converse with thyself, 
For nothing worthy proving can be proven. 
Nor yet disproven : wherefore thou be wise. 
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt. 



THE ANCIENT SAGE 289 

And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith! 

70 She reels not in the storm of warring words, 
She brightens at the clash of **Yes" and *'No," 
She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst, 
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night, 
She spies the summer thro' the winter bud, 

75 She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, 
She hears the lark within the songless egg^ 
She finds the fountain where they wail'd '^Mirage!" 

**What Power? aught akin to Mind, 
The mind in me and you? 
80 Or power as of the Gods gone blind 

Who see not what they do?" 

But some in yonder city hold, my son, 

( That none but Gods could build this house of ours, 
So beautiful, vast, various, so beyond 

85 All work of man, yet, like all work of man, 
A beauty with defect — till That which knows. 
And is not known, but felt thro' what we feel 
Within ourselves is highest, shall descend 

( On this half-deed, and shape it at the last 

M According to the Highest in the Highest. 

**What Power but the Years that make 

And break the vase of clay. 
And stir the sleeping earth, and wake 

The bloom that fades away? 
What rulers but the Days and Hours 

That cancel weal with woe. 



290 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And wind the front of youth with flowers, 
And cap our age with snow?" 

The days and hours are ever glancing by, 

And seem to flicker past thro' sun and shade, loo 

Or short, or long, as Pleasure leads, or Pain; 

But with the Nameless is nor Day nor Hour; 

Tho' we, thin minds, who creep from thought to 

thought. 
Break into "Thens" and *'Whens" the Eternal 

Now: 
This double seeming of the single world ! — 105 

My words are like the babblings in a dream 
Of nightmare, when the babblings break the dream. 
But thou be wise in this dream-world of ours, 
Nor take thy dial for thy deity. 
But make the passing shadow serve thy will. no 

**The years that made the stripling wise 

Undo their work again, 
And leave him, blind of heart and eyes, 

The last and least of men ; 
Who clings to earth, and once would dare 115 

Hell-heat or Arctic cold, 
And now one breath of cooler air 

Would loose him from his hold ; 
His winter chills him to the root, 

He withers marrow and mind; lac 

The kernel of the shrivell'd fruit 

Is jutting thro' the rind; f 

The tiger spasms tear his chest, 



THE ANCIENT SAGE 291 

The palsy wags his head; 
25 The wife, the sons, who love him best 

Would fain that he were dead ; 
The griefs by which he once was wrung 
Were never worth the while" — 

Who knows? or whether this earth-narrow life 
30 Be yet but yolk, and forming in the shell? 

**The shaft of scorn that once had stung 
But wakes a dotard smile." 

The placid gleam of sunset after storm ! 

*'The statesman's brain that sway'd the past 
35 Is feebler than his knees ; 

( The passive sailor wrecks at last 

In ever- silent seas ; 
The warrior hath forgot his arms. 

The Learned all his lore; 
10 The changing market frets or charms 

The merchant's hope no more; 
The prophet's beacon burn'd in vain, 

And now is lost in cloud; 
The plowman passes, bent with pain, 

To mix with what he plow'd; 
The poet whom his Age would quote 

As heir of endless fame — 
lie knows not ev'n the book he wrote. 

Not even his own name. 
For man has overlived his day, 



292 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And darkening in the light, 
Scarce feels the senses break away 
To mix with ancient Night." 

The shell must break before the bird can fly. . 

*'The years that when my Youth began i65 

Had set the lily and rose 
By all my ways where'er they ran, 

Have ended mortal foes ; 
My rose of love for ever gone. 

My lily of truth and trust — i6o 

They made her lily and rose in one, 

And changed her into dust. 
rosetree planted in my grief, 

And growing, on her tomb. 
Her dust is greening in your leaf, i«5 

Her blood is in your bloom. 
slender lily waving there, 

And laughing back the light. 
In vain you tell me 'Earth is fair' 

When all is dark as night." no 

My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves, 
So dark that men cry out against the Heavens. 
Who knows but that the darkness is in man? 
The doors of Night may be the gates of Light ; 
For wert thou born or blind or deaf, and then its 

Suddenly heal'd, how would'st thou glory in all 
The splendours and the voices of the world ! 
And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet 



THE ANCIENT SAGE 293 

No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore 
180 Await the last and largest sense to make 
The phantom walls of this illusion fade, 
And show us that the world is wholly fair. 

*'But vain the tears for darkened years 
• As laughter over wine, 

185 And vain the laughter as the tears, 

brother, mine or thine, 

**For all that laugh, and all that weep, 
) And all that breathe are one 

Slight ripple on the boundless deep 
190 That moves, and all is gone." 

But that one ripple on the boundless deep 
I Feels that the deep is boundless, and itself 
For ever changing form, but evermore 
One with the boundless motion of the deep. 

105 *'Yet wine and laughter, friends! and set 
J The lamps alight, and call 

For golden music, and forget 
The darkness of the pall." 

If utter darkness closed the day, my son — 
200 But earth's dark forehead flings athwart the heavens 
? Her shadow crown 'd with stars — and yonder — out 

To northward — some that never set, but pass 

From sight and night to lose themselves in day. 

I hate the black negation of the bier. 



294 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

And wish the dead, as happier than ourselves 20^ 

And higher, having climb'd one step beyond 
Our village miseries, might be borne in white 
To burial or to burning, hymn'd from hence 
With songs in praise of death, and crown'd with 
flowers ! 

**0 worms and maggots of to-day 21c 

Without their hope of wings!" 

But louder than thy rhyme the silent Word 
Of that world-prophet in the heart of man. 

*'Tho' some have gleams or so they say 

Of more than mortal things." 215 

To-day? but what of yesterday? for oft 

On me, when boy, there came what then I call'd. 

Who knew no books and no philosophies, 

In my boy-phrase, *'The Passion of the Past." 

The first gray streak of earliest summer-dawn, 22^^ 

The last long stripe of waning crimson gloom, 

As if the late and early were but one — 

A height, a broken grange, a grove, a flower 

Had murmurs *'Lost and gone and lost and gone!" 

A breath, a whisper — some divine farewell — 225 

Desolate sweetness — far and far away — 

What had he loved, what had he lost, the boy? 

I know not and I speak of what has been. 

And more, my son ! for more than once when I 
Sat all alone, revolving in myself 



THE ANCIENT SAGE 295 

The word that is the symbol of myself, 
The mortal limit of the Self was loosed, 
And past into the Nameless, as a cloud 
Melts into Heaven. I touch 'd my limbs, the limbs 
235 Were strange not mine — and yet no shade of doubt, 
But utter clearness, and thro' loss of Self 
The gain of such large life as match 'd with ours 
Were Sun to spark — unshadowable in words, 
Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world. 

240 ''And idle gleams will come and go, 

But still the clouds remain;" 

The clouds themselves are children of the Sun, 

*'And Night and Shadow rule below 
When only Day should reign." 

lib And Day and Night are children of the Sun, 
And idle gleams to thee are light to me. 
Some say, the Light was father of the Night, 
And some, the Night was father of the Light, 
No night no day ! — I touch thy world again — 
J50 No ill no good! such counter-terms, my son, 
I Are border-races, holding, each its own 
By endless war: but night enough is there 
In yon dark city : get thee back : and since 
The key to that weird casket, which for thee 
^ But holds a skull, is neither thine nor mine, 
^ But in the hand of what is more than man, 



296 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Or in man's hand when man is more than man, 

Let be thy wail and help thy fellow men, 

And make thy gold thy vassal not thy king. 

And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl, mo 

And send the day into the darken 'd heart; 

Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, 

A dying echo from a falling wall ; 

Nor care — for Hunger hath the Evil eye — 

To vex the noon with fiery gems, or fold ses 

Thy presence in the silk of sumptuous looms ; 

Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue, 

Nor drown thyself with flies in honied wine ; 

Nor thou be rageful, like a handled bee. 

And lose thy life by usage of thy sting ; 270 

Nor harm an adder thro' the lust for harm, 

Nor make a snail's horn shrink for wantonness; 

And more — think well ! Do-well will follow thought. 

And in the fatal sequence of this world 

An evil thought may soil thy children's blood; 275 

But curb the beast would cast thee in the mire. 

And leave the hot swamp of voluptuousness 

A cloud between the Nameless and thyself, 

And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel, 

And climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou 280 

Look higher, then — perchance — thou mayest — 

beyond 
A hundred ever-rising mountain lines. 
And past the range of Night and Shadow — see 
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day 
Strike on the Mount of Vision ! s8? 

So, farewell. 



MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 297 

''FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE" 

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row! 

So they row'd, and there we landed — ''0 venusta 
Sirmio!" 

There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the sum- 
mer glow, 

There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple 
flowers grow, 
5 Came that ''Ave atque Vale" of the Poet's hopeless 
woe, 

Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years 
ago, 

''Frater Ave atque Vale," — as we wander'd to and 
' fro, 

Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake 
below. 

Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio! 

MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 

I 

young Mariner, 
You from the haven 
Under the sea-cliff, 
You that are watching 
The gray Magician 
With eyes of wonder, 

1 am Merlin, 
And /am dying, 
/ am Merlin 
Who follow The Gleam. 



298 SELECTIOxNS FROM TENNYSON 

II 
Mighty the Wizard 
Who found me at sunrise 
Sleeping, and woke me 
And learn 'd me Magic! 
Great the Master, is 

And sweet the Magic, 
When over the valley, 
In early summers, 
Over the mountain, 

On human faces, ao 

And all around me, 
Moving to melody. 
Floated The Gleam. 

Ill 
Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it, 
A barbarous people, 25 

Blind to the Magic, 
And deaf to the melody, 
Snarl'd at and cursed me. 
A demon vext me. 
The light retreated, 3o 

The landskip darken'd, 
The melody deaden 'd, 
The Master whisper'd, 
^^FoUowThe Gleam." 

IV 

Then to the melody. 
Over a wilderness 
Gliding, and glancing at 



MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 299 

Elf of the woodland, 

Gnome of the cavern, 

Griffin and Giant, 

And dancing of Fairies 

In desolate hollows, 

And wraiths of the mountain, 

And rolling of dragons 

By warble of water, 

Or cataract music 

Of falling torrents, 

Flitted The Gleam. 



Down from the mountain 

And over the level, 

And streaming and shining on 

Silent river, 

Silvery willow. 

Pasture and plowland. 

Innocent maidens. 

Garrulous children. 

Homestead and harvest, 

Reaper and gleaner, 

And rough-ruddy faces 

Of lowly labour, 

Slided The Gleam— 

VI 

Then, with a melody 
Stronger and statelier, 
Led me at length 



300 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

To the city and palace «6 

Of Arthur the king ; 

Touch'd at the golden 

Cross of the churches, 

Flash'd on the Tournament, 

Flicker'd and bicker'd , 70 

From helmet to helmet. 

And last on the forehead 

Of Arthur the blameless 

Rested The Gleam. 



VII 

Clouds and darkness 75 

Closed upon Camelot; 

Arthur had vanish 'd 

I knew not whither. 

The king who loved me, 

And cannot die ; 80 

For out of the darkness 

Silent and slowly 

The Gleam, that had waned to a wintry 

glimmer 
On icy fallow 

And faded forest, 85 

Drew to the valley 
Named of the shadow. 
And slowly brightening 
Out of the glimmer, 

And slowly moving again to a melody 90 

Yearningly tender, 



MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 301 

Fell on the shadow, 

No longer a shadow, 

But clothed with The Gleam. 



VIII 

And broader and brighter 

The Gleam flying onward, 

Wed to the melody, 

Sang thro' the world ; 

And slower and fainter. 

Old and weary, 

But eager to follow, 

I saw, whenever 

In passing it glanced upon 

Hamlet or city. 

That under the Crosses 

The dead man's garden. 

The mortal hillock, 

Would break into blossom 

And so to the land's 

Last limit I came 

And can no longer. 

But die rejoicing, 

For thro' the Magic 

Of Him the Mighty, 

Who taught me in childhood, 

There on the border 

Of boundless Ocean, 

And all but in Heaven 

Hovers The Gleam. 



303 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

IX 

Not of the sunlight, lao 

Not of the moonlight, 

Not of the starlight ! 

young Mariner, 

Down to the haven, 

Call your companions, 125 

Launch your vessel, 

And crowd your canvas, 

And, ere it vanishes 

Over the margin. 

After it, follow it, 130 

Follow The Gleam. 

FAR-FAR-AWAY 

(FOR MUSIC) 

What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew 
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue. 

Par-far-away? 

What sound was dearest in his native dells? 
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells i 

Far-far-away. 

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy. 
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy. 

Far-far-away? 

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath 10 

From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death 

Far-far-away? 



THE THROSTLE 3G3 

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth, 
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth, 
5 Far-far-away? 

What charm in words, a charm no words could give? 
dying words, can Music make you live 

Far-far-away? 



THE THROSTLE 

"Summer is coming, summer is coming. 

I know it, I know it, I know it. 
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again," 

Yes, my wild little Poet. 

Sing the new year in under the blue. 

Last year you sang it as gladly. 
"New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new 

That you should carol so madly? 

"Love again, song again, nest again, young again," 

Never a prophet so crazy! 
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, 

See, there is hardly a daisy. 

"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!" 

warble unchidden, unbidden! 
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear. 

And all the winters are hidden. 



304 SELECTIONS FROM JEN NY SON 

CROSSING THE BAR 

Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me ! 
And may there be no moaning of the bar, 

When I put out to sea, 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell. 

And after that the dark ! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell. 

When I embark; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar. 



NOTES 



THE IDYLLS OF THE KING 

f Tennyson's The Idylls of the King is a series of twelve stories con- 
nected by the fact that they all have to do with the history of King 
Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Taken together they 
carry King Arthur's work from its glorious inception, through the 
early days of success, later through mistakes and sins on the part 
of many of the knights, to the final dissolution of the Order and the 
(^ath of Arthur. 
\The two books from which Tennyson gained his material for these 
stories are the Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh fairy tales and 
romances, translated by Lady Charlott^e Guest, and published in 
1838-49, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur^ From the first of these 
books came The Marriage of Geraint and Geraint and Enid, and 
details in other stories. The chief source, however, is the Morte 
d' Arthur, which was brought out by Caxton, the first English printer, 
in 1485. In a quaint preface Caxton tells us that the stories in the 
book were taken by Sir Thomas Malory "out of certain French books 
and reduced into English." This was done, he says, because there 
were "many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England" 
who thought that King Arthur "ought to be remembered amongst 
us Englishmen tofore all other Christian kings." 

Malory's book was the first to gather together the stories about 
King Arthur, but the stories are themselves much older than Malory's 
time. In 1147 appeared Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum 
Britanniae, which professed to tell the story of the British kings from 
Brutus, the mythical founder of Britain, down to Cadwallo in 689. 
His work is a medley of information drawn from various sources, but 
it is conceded that from its appearance dates a new literary epoch. 
It was written in Latin, but eight years later (1155) Wace translated 
it into Norman French under the title Brut d'Engleterre, This book 
made the stories of the kings widely known. About 1205 appeared 
Layamon's Brut, a metrical translation in Middle English of Wace's 
version. Layamon's poem contained much new material. It is from 
these books that Malory took the particular tales that pertain to 
Arthur, and so formed the first Arthuriad. Malory's Morte d* Arthur 
is now easily accessible in the Globe edition and should be read in 
connection with Tennyson's The Idylls of the King, 

305 



306 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

^ Tennyson's interest in the story of Arthur dates from the time 
when as a mere boy he happened upon Malory's book, and the concep- 
tion of Arthur as a hero flashed upon him^ {Alfred, Lord Tenny- 
son, A Memoir by His Son, II. 128.) He began early to write on 
themes connected with the Arthurian legends. In 1832 he published 
The Lady of Shalott, a poem based on the same story as Lancelot 
and Elaine. Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, though not pub- 
lished till 1842, was partly if not wholly written in 1830. (Mem. 
II., p. 122.) About 1833 Tennyson also wrote a prose sketch enti- 
tled King Arthur, and about the same time a "Memorandum" of a 
possible allegorical scheme for the story of Arthur. In one of his 
1833-40 MS. books was the rough draft of a scenario showing 
that he had considered the advisability of presenting the Arthur 
story as a musical masque. (Mem. II. 122-5.) \^The subject of 
King Arthur continually haunted him. ^ In 1842 appeared Sir 
Galahad and Morte d' Arthur. The second of these was, however, 
composed much earlier, for Edward Fitzgerald writes, "The 'Morte 
d' Arthur' when read to us from manuscript in 1835 had no introduction 
or epilogue." (Mem. 1. 194.) \A11 these facts are cumulative evi- 
dence of the early and definite bent of Tennyson's mind to the sub- 
jects afterwards embodied in the Idylls. Yet he was very slow to 
set about the work. 

He wrote the Morte d^ Arthur, as has been said, as early as 1835, 
but the next of the Idylls was not begim till 1856, when he "resumed 
the plan" with Merlin and Nimue, and for three years thereafter he 
was steadily occupied with various poems of the series. He went 
to Wales, studied Welsh with local schoolmasters, visited Arthurian 
localities, re-read Malory, and familiarized himself with the Mabino- 
gion. The outcome of the three years' work was the publication, in 
July, 1859, of Enid, Vivien (formerly Nimue), Elaine, and Guinevere 
under the title, Idylls of the King. The dedication to the late Prince 
Consort was added in 1862. In 1869 appeared a volume containing 
The Holy Grail, The Coming of Arthur, Pelleas and Ettarre, and The 
Passing of Arthur (the enlarged Morte d' Arthur). The Last Tourna- 
ment appeared in the December Contemporary Review, 1871. Gareih 
and Lynette was already written in November, 1871 (Mem. II. 110), 
but was not published till July, 1872. The epilogue to the Queen 
was added in 1872. At this point Tennyson thought that he had 
completed the series, but he afterwards felt that something more was 
needed to explain Vivien, so he wrote Balin and Balan, which appeared 
in the Tiresias volume of 1885. In 1884 Geraint and Enid was divided 
into two parts, and in 1888 the two parts received their present 
names as separate Idylls. Thus the twelve Idylls v/ere brought to a 
close. The present order was determined upon in the edition of 
1888. 



NOTES 307 

GARETH AND LYNETTE 

Line I. Lot. King of Orkney. One of the "petty kings" that 
Joined the rebellious barons in the war against Arthur. Cf. 11. 72-80. 
Bellicent, his wife, was King Arthur's half-sister, who was brought 
up with him and was loyal to him even when her husband joined 
the barons against him. 

3. Spate. Gareth was at his father's home in one of the Orkney 
Islands, north of Scotland {The Coming of Arthur, \. 115); hence it is 
appropriate for him to use the Gaelic word "spate" to describe a 
river in flood-time. In line 90 he uses "burns" for streams. 

18. Heaven yield her for it. An obsolete use of the word "yield" 
in the sense of "reward." 

20. Discaged. Tennyson freely makes new compounds with the 
prefix "dis." 

21 . Ever-highering. A rare verb, either transitive as in "to higher 
the sails," or intransitive as in this passage, meaning "to become 
higher." 

25. Gawain. An elder brother of Gareth, and already one of 
Arthur's knights. His success in warfare was shown by his blazoned 
shield (cf. 1. 408). But less desirable qualities became apparent later. 
Note the cavalier fashion in which he pursued the king's quest, and 
his light courtship of Elaine. {Lancelot and Elaine, 11. 550-700.) 
He was killed in Lancelot's war against the king. It was Gawain's 
voice that Arthur heard on the night before the last battle. {The 
Passing of Arthur, 11. 30-57.) 

26. Modred. The sullen, jealous spirit shown by Modred in this 
passage characterized his whole life. He performed no knightly 
deeds (cf. 11. 402-9). He hated the queen and Lancelot, and he 
was envious of Arthur and plotted to supplant him. He was tolerated 
among the knights of the Round Table only because he was "hunched 
and halt," and so excuses had been made for him. He is described 
as having a "narrow, foxy face, heart-hiding smile, and gray, per- 
sistent eye." The final revolt against Arthur was headed by Modred. 
and Arthur's last act was the slaying of the traitor. {Guinevere, 11. 
10-110; The Passing of Arthur, 11. 59-64, 150-69.) 

36. Wild-goose. Why is the goose here, and in line 38, and pro- 
verbially, a symbol for foolishness? Dr. Johnson {Diet.) defines 
goose thus: "A large, web-footed water-fowl, noted, I know not why, 
for foolishness." 

46. Book of Hours. A book of devotion containing the prayers 
or offices for the seven stated times of the day set apart for prayer. 
Many of these books were richly ornamented with illuminations and 
paintings. 

51. A leash of kings. A sporting term for three things of any 
kind, coming from the old custom of having three hounds held together 
by a thong or leash. 



308 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

66. Excalibur. Arthur's famous sword, given him by the Lady 
of the Lake (various passages in The Passing of Arthur). In the old 
epics and romances the hero's sword had a name and a personality 
of its own. 

84. Red berries charm the bird. That is, lure the bird into the 
snare. 

94. My prone year. Milton (P. L. iv. 353) says: 
**The sun 
Declined, was hasting now with prone career 
To the ocean isles." 
115-118. Man am I grown, etc. Cf. 11. 541-4; also this passage 
from Guinevere, 11. 464-74, in which King Arthur says : 

**I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King, as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs. 
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it. 
To honor his own word as if his God's, 
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 
To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 
And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
Until they won her." 

133-135. Who swept the dust, etc. It was at his marriage banquet 
that Arthur openly refused longer to pay tribute to Rome, "the slowly- 
fading mistress of the world." The "idolaters" referred to here are 
the heathen hordes from whom he freed Leodogran. 

147. Note the play on the word "quick," used in two meanings. 
Cf. 1. 695 for a similar play on the word "fire." For a play on "lost" 
see Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 163. Note also the repetitions of the same 
root in different forms in "prove" and "proof." Cf. 1. 1007. Both 
of these devices of style are frequent in Tennyson. 

151. Kitchen-knaves. "Knave" originally meant, as here, only 
a boy servant. 

152. Across the bar. Originally, as here, the counter over which 
food as well as drink was handed. The word has become restricted 
in meaning. Cf. "knave" above. 

154. A twelvemonth and a day. A traditional expression for a 
full year. 

157. Villain. Originally merely one of low birth, a serf; later 
one of ignoble character. Which is the meaning here? 

176. Still. "Habitually" or "continually." Common in Eliza- 
bethan English. Addisonsays, "Heis still afraid," meaning "always 
afraid." 

181. Were quickened. Note the vivifying effect of words such as 
"quickened," "live," "kindled." In Oenone is a similar line, 
"And at their feet the crocus brake like fire." 

185. Camelot. In a sketch found among Tennyson's papers is 
the following passage: "On the latest limit of the West, in the land 



NOTES 309 

of Lyonesse, where save the rocky Isles of Scilly, all is now wild sea, 
rose the sacred Mount of Camelot. It rose from the deeps with 
gardens and bowers and palaces, and at the top of the mount was 
King Arthur's hall and the holy minster with the cross of gold." 
The city owed much of its beauty to Merlin (cf. 11. 296-302). 

200. Changeling out of Fairyland, One story of Arthur's birth 
is that on the stormy night when Uther died "wailing for an heir," 
Merlin and Bleys had gone down to the ocean, had seen the swift 
coming and going of a magic ship, dragon-winged, and that then great 
waves alive with flame came rolling in to shore and the ninth one 
brought and dropped at Merlin's feet the naked babe destined to be 
Uther's heir. 

202. Merlin. The great magician. He was a pupil of Bleys, 
but he soon so far surpassed his master that Bleys abandoned magic and 
spent his life writing the deeds of Merlin in a book. He was "the 
most famous man of all those times," he "knew the starry heavens," 
he had "built the king his] havens, ships, and halls." But finally 
overcome by the wiles of Vivien, he told her the charm of woven 
paces and of waving hands, and she made immediate use of her 
knowledge to imprison him in a hollow oak, where he remained "lost to 
life and use and name and fame." The whole story is told in Mer- 
lin and Vivien. 

207. Arabian Sea. This "may allude to the mediaeval notion 
that plunging into certain seas destroyed his sorceries; the Red Sea 
especially had this property, it was said." (Littledale: Essays on 
Tennyson's Idylls of The King, p. 86. ) 

212. The Lady of the Lake. She is represented as having an impor- 
tant relation to Arthur's career. She was present at his crowning. 
She made the sword, Excalibur, and gave it to him, her voice was 
heard when his marriage was solemnized, her statue stood over the 
great gate of his city, and at his death it was she who took again the 
great sword (The Passing of Arthur). But it is not easy to see what 
she actually does in the story that would justify the elaborate emblem- 
atic figure of her over the gate. 

218. Either. Usually, "one of two taken indifferently"; here, 
"each of two." 

219. Sacred fish. As the sword was the symbol of justice, and 
the censer, or incense, of holiness, so the fish is the emblem of Christ. 
It became so because the letters that make the Greek word for "fish," 
IX0Y2, were the initial letters of 'Itjo-oC? Xpiarbi &eov 'Yi6? SwTiJp. 

225. Those three queens. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 11. 273-8: 

"Down from the casement over Arthur, smote 
Flame-color, vert, and azure, in three rays, 
One falling upon each of three fair queens 
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright, 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need.' 



310 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

229. Dragon-houghvS. Coiled tails of dragons. Emblemings. 
Symbolic representations. 

236. An ancient man. Merlin. He was "an hundred winters old. " 

249. Son, I have seen, etc. Merlin refers to the effects of mirage, 
seen especially in the Straits of Messina, and superstitiously attributed 
to the fairy Morgana, and frequently known as the Fata Morgana. 

271. For an ye heard a music, etc. Merlin purposely speaks in 
blind, allegorical fashion to Gareth. 

The walls of Camelot were built, Merlin adds, to the music of fairy 
harps. The walls of Thebes were anciently believed to have thus 
arisen. Oenone says that the walls of Troy "rose slowly to a music 
slowly breathed." 

280. The Riddling of the Bards. The ancient Celtic minstrels 
often worded their prophecies so that no definite meaning could be 
drawn from them. So, too. Merlin, when Bellicent questioned him 
concerning Arthur's birth, answered in "riddling triplets of old time." 
Much of Merlin's speech is intentionally vague in reference and 
imagery. 

283-288. Note how the repetition of "mock" in various forms 
emphasizes the sense of mystery and unreality. There is a play on 
two meanings, "to make sport of" and "to deceive." 

293. She, nor I. Is this grammatical? 

298. Did their days in stone. Carved representations of great 
events. 

312. That long-vauUed hall. This famous hall, built by Merlin, 
is described in lines 393-401, 650-60. 

323. Faith in their great King. It is in this Idyll that the knight- 
hood is seen in the full flower of its excellence, before sin has progressed 
far enough to maim and distort it. This fine scene, witnessed by 
Gareth in the great hall, with King Arthur on the throne, impressing 
his personality on his knights, a great leader with great followers, was 
but typical of whatlhappened often in those days of the puissant Order. 
As king, Arthur is cool, calm, steady; judicial in temper, but sym- 
pathetic and generous ; with confidence in the power of his knights to 
cleanse the world. The knights are loyal and obedient, eager for 
service, courageous, light-hearted, and hopeful. 

327. Uther. A king of the Britons. He succeeded his brother 
Aurelius Ambrosius (or Emrys). 

35 1 . Standeth seized of. Is in possession of. 

355. Wreak me. Avenge me. 

359. Sir Kay. "The most ungentle knight" in Arthur's court. 
He is called the Thersites of the Idylls. 

362. Gyve and gag. The reference is to the fetters with which 
scolding women were formerly tied into a chair called the cucking- 
stool, and to the iron muzzle (called a Branks or Gossip's Bridle) 
fastened to their heads. 



NOTES 311 

376. Mark. A coward and a traitor. "Mark's way" was "to 
steal behind one in the dark." He was the husband of the beautiful 
Isolt of Britain, but treated her with great cruelty. In Malory he 
is fully described and there he is called "King Fox." 

380. Charlock. A plant of the mustard species, a common pest 
in grain fields. It has yellow blossoms. 

385-39 1 . The messenger repeats thus in indirect form the message 
sent by Mark. In lines 384-9 the personal pronouns refer to 
Mark. 

386. Cousin. Formerly used to mean any near relative. Tris- 
tram was the son of Mark's sister. 

398. Blazoned. Painted with heraldic devices. 

422, Lap him up in cloth of lead. "Lap" meant "wrap" or 
"enfold"; "cloth of lead" is an allusion to the old custom of using 
sheet-lead for winding round corpses. In Malory, Bk. xxi., ch. xi., 
we read that when Guinevere was dead she was "wrapped in cered 
cloth of Raines . . . and after she was put in a web of lead, and then 
in a coffin of marble." 

444. Wan-sallow. Sir Kay is described as having a sickly yellow 
color like that of plants the roots of which are diseased through some 
parasitic growth. 

447. God wot, etc. Cf. Malory: "Into the kitchen I shall bring 
him, and there he shall have fat browis every day, that he shall be 
as fat by the twelvemonth end as a pork hog." 

452. Sleuth-hound. "Slot-hound," i.e., a hound that follows the 
"slot" or track of the deer. 

463. Tut, an the lad were noble. Cf. Malory: "I dare under- 
take he is a villain born and never will make man, for and he had 
come of gentlemen he would have asked of you horse and armour, 
but such as he is, so he asketh. And since he hath no name, I shall 
give him a name that shall be Beaumains, that is. Fair Hands." 

489. Tarns. Mountain lakes. "The word tarn has no meaning 
with us, though our young poets sometimes use it. . . . But when 
you have seen one of those still, inky pools at the head of a silent, 
lonely Westmoreland dale, you will not be apt to misapply the word 
in future. Suddenly the serene shepherd mountain opens this black, 
gleaming eye at your feet, and it is all the more weird for hav- 
ing no eyebrow of rocks, or fringe of rush or bush." Burroughs: 
Fresh Fields. Cf. Lancelot and Elaine, 11. 34-55. 

490. Caer-Eryri's highest. The summit of Mt. Snowdon, literally 
Snowdon ( ^Jryr i ) Field (Cae) the "r" being euphonic. According to one 
story of the coming of Arthur he was found on Caer-Eryri. 

492. The Isle Avilion. "The Isle of Apples." Cf. The Passing of 
Arthur, 11. 427-31, for description of the island valley. "Avilion" is 
the same as the "Avalon" in The Palace of Art, 1. 107. 

515. So for a month. In Morte d' Arthur he serves a full year. 



312 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

524. Ragged oval. The boys mark out in the sand a rough outline 
of the lists at the tournaments. 

528. From Satan's foot, etc. From hell to heaven, from despair 
to hope. 

539. The good mother, etc. In Morte d' Arthur Arthur does not 
know who Gareth is, and it is not Arthur but Lancelot who makes 
him a knight. 

571. The lions. Cf. 1. 1186 and Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 659. 

575. May-blossom. The white hawthorn. Cf. 1. 642 and 1. 1054 
and determine whether the month or the flower is meant in each case. 

576. Hawk-eyes. Cf. Tennyson's Rosalind, "Your hawk-eyes are 
keen and bright." 

586. That best blood. The wine of the sacrament, which represents 
the blood of Christ. 

607. Or a holy life. She will become a nun. 

619. Morning-star, etc. These three together make up the 
"Day" of the preceding line. 

655. Blowing. Blossoming. 

665. A maiden shield. A blank shield. See lines 402-7. 

693. Hath past his time. He seems to be in his dotage. 

729. Foul-flesh'd agaric. The agaric is a kind of mushroom. 

731. Shrew. The shrew-mouse. The shrews usually have a 
musky odor, and in some of the larger kinds this scent is very 
strong. 

739. Shocked. Encountered in the conflict. An archaic use of 
the word. 

742. Shingle. Coarse gravel. 

749. Unhappiness. Bad luck on the part of Sir Kay. 

777. Gloomy-gladed. Note how many of Tennyson's compounds 
are alliterative, as, foul-flesh'd, shoulder-slipt, crag-carven, sand- 
shores, green-glimmering, etc. 

779. Red eye of an eagle-owl. The great horned owl. "The 
comparison between the pool gleaming red in the twilight, and the 
eye of an eagle-owl, burning round and bright in the darkness, may 
have the fault of being too uncommon to really illustrate the descrip- 
tion, but it is a simile that an ornithologist can appreciate. Indeed, 
a book might be written on the bird-lore of Tennyson, as has been 
well done by Mr. Harting in the case of Shakespeare." (Littledale: 
Essays on Tennyson's Idylls of the King, p. 98.) 

816. Arthur's table. Made by Merlin for Uther, and given by Uther 
to Leodogran, the father of Guinevere. Leodogran gave the table 
and the hundred knights to Arthur when Arthur married Guinevere. 
The table seated one hundred and fifty knights, and each seat be- 
longed to a special knight, except one, which was known as the "Siege 
Perilous" and was reserved for that knight who should achieve the 
Holy Grail. What is usually meant by "Arthur's Round Table" is 



NOTES • 313 

a smaller table for his twelve favorite knights. A Round Table was 
common in all ages of chivalry. Edward III had one two hundred 
feet in diameter. (Cf. Brewer's Reader's Handbook.) 

829. A peacock in his pride. A roasted peacock dressed in its 
full plumage was served at table only on the most important and 
magnificent occasions. 

839. Frontless. Unabashed, shameless. 

881. Hers who lay among the ashes. The reference is to Cinderella. 

883. Then to the shore, etc. Mr. Elsdale interprets the serpent- 
river as a symbol of the stream of time, its three long loops being 
youth, old age, middle age. "The encounters in this pageant are 
alike clear, varied, brief, set each in its own fair landscape and the 
sound of the river accompanies them with warlike music. They 
are real enough, but they are also allegorical. It is easy for the 
faith and boldness of youth to conquer the sins and troubles of the 
dawn of life; it is harder to slay those of its noonday; it is harder 
still to overcome those of its late afternoon." (Stop ford Brooke: 
Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 277.) 

889. Lent-lily. The daffodil. So named because it flowers 
during Lent. The color was a favorite with Tennyson, Note his 
references to a "daffodil' sky. 

908. Avanturine. A variety of feldspar spangled with mica, used 
here merely as a symbol of flashing brightness. 

939. Central bridge. In the center of the bridge. 

971. morning star, etc. The effect of Lynette's three songs is 
cumulative and they should be considered together. She had had 
a morning dream — and such dreams traditionally come true — that 
she should have a victorious champion that day, and much as 
she still reviled her knave-knight, her first song, and more strongly 
each succeeding one, was a joyous recognition of the fulfillment of 
her dream. Her allusions to nature are consonant to the number 
of the victories. After one victory she invokes a single star; 
after two victories her invocations are in sets of two each, the sun 
and the moon, flowers open and flowers shut, birds at morning 
and birds at evening; after three victories it is the trefoil (three- 
leaved clover) and the rainbow "with three colors." 

977. But thou begone, etc. Note here and elsewhere the skill 
with which the narrated conversation is kept up. Of this poem Ten- 
nyson said, *• 'Gareth' is not finished yet. I left him off once alto- 
gether, finding him more difficult to deal with than anything excepting 
perhaps *Aylmer*s Field.' If I were at liberty, which I think I am 
not, to print the names of the speakers 'Gareth,' 'Linette' over 
the short snip-snap of their talk, and so avoid the perpetual 
*said 'and its varieties, the work would be much easier." (Mem. 
II. 113.) 
■ 1002. The flower. The dandelion. Cf. The Poet, stanzas 5 and 6. 



314 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

1012. Vizoring up. He covered his face by closing the vizor or 
front part of his helmet. 

1013. Cipher face of rounded foolishness. ''Apparently the 
roundness denotes its coin-like shape, as this middle knight seems to 
symbolize the love of gold in middle age." (Littledale: Essays on 
Tennyson's Idylls of the King, p. 106.) 

1048. Rosemaries and bay. Bay is the bay-laurel tree, sprigs 
and leaves of which were woven in crowns for conquerors. The rose- 
mary was also an evergreen shrub. To garnish the boar's head with 
bays and rosemary was an old custom. 

1067. V/rapt in hardened skins. "Tennyson's representation of 
the Knight of the Evening Star is full of original thought. He is old 
and hard ; he blows a hard and deadly note upon his horn. A storm- 
beaten, russet, many-stained pavilion shelters him. A grizzled 
damsel arms him in ancient arms. Beneath his arms a hardened 
skin fits close to his body. All is different from that which the com- 
monplace imagination connects with the evening star." (Stopford 
Brooke: Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 277.) 
Mr. Elsdale interprets the hardened skin covering the old man as the 
habits of a lifetime that become unalterable at last. Cf. the simile, 
11. 1100-4. 

1130. "0 trefoil.'' The gentler and more poetic side of Lynette 
is not in the description -of her in Malory. Mr. Stopford Brooke calls 
her "a fresh and frank young person, smart and thoughtless, quick- 
tongued, over-rude, over-bold, both with the King and with Lancelot, 
but honourable and pure of heart — the petulant and impatient type/' 
and he thinks her imaginative songs inconsistent with the kind of 
abuse she heaped on Gareth. Mr. Van Dyke speaks of her as "brave, 
high-spirited, and lovable, but narrow-minded," "a society girl, a 
worshiper of rank and station." Do you agree with these estimates? 

1163. A narrow comb. Sometimes written 'coomb.'- It is the 
steep, narrow head of a valley. 

1169. Yon four fools. The caitiff knights conquered by Gareth. 
Their foolish notion of posing as morning, noon, evening, and night 
and death, had come from their study of the figures carved on the 
rock. 

1 1 72. Vexillary, etc. Referring to the Latin words carved by 
the vexillary or standard-bearer of the second legion upon a cliff 
that overhangs the little river Gelt near Brampton in Cumberland. 

1174. The five words mean. Morning Star, Noonday, Evening 
Star, Night, Death. Hence the names of the four caitiff knights. 

1175. The five figures, one under each name, are emblems of 
Time chasing the Soul. 

1184. Error. Used in its etymological sense of "wandering." 

1255. How sweetly smells, etc. Of these lines Mrs. Tennyson 

wrote in her Journal for September 24, 1872: "His [Tennyson's] 



NOTES 315 

lines on the honeysuckle in 'Gareth' were made on the lawn about 
the honeysuckle that climbs up the house at Aid worth," 

1273. Ramp, etc. "In heraldry it [the lion] is a more conspicuous 
beast than even the ordinary familiarity with the armorial lion would 
lead the uninitiated to suppose, for . . . it was once upon a time the 
only beast thought worthy to be worn on shields and helmets. Thus, 
kings of England, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Princes of Wales 
and Dukes of Normandy, Counts of Flanders, Earls of Arundel 
Lincoln, Leicester, Shrewsbury, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Hereford, 
all bore lions; indeed, up to the twelfth century, heraldic zoology 
begins and ends with the King of Beasts. . . . For the lion pure and 
simple, heraldry insists that it shall be 'rampant.' That attitude 
belongs to it as a matter of course." (Robinson: The Poets' Beasts, 
p. 22.) 

1281. Arthur's Harp. Cf. The Last Tournament, 11. 332-3: 

"Dost thou know the star 
We call the Harp of Arthur up in Heaven?" 

Mr. Littledale thinks the reference is to some star near enough to 
the Pole-star and Arcturus to form with them a triangle like a harp. 
The reference is, however, obscure. The knights evidently enjoyed 
playing with astronomical fancies. In The Holy Grail we read : 

" . * . and thro* the gap 
The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round — 
For, brother, so one night, because they roll 
Thro' such a round in heaven, we named the stars." 

The reference here is evidently to the Great Bear, or "The Dipper." 

1282. Counter motion. The stars seemed to be moving in a direc- 
tion opposite to that of the clouds. 

1348. Fleshless laughter. A grinning skull. 

1390. And horrors only proven, etc. The allegory may mean that 
Gareth found Love instead of Death (Littledale), or that Death, 
"apparently the most formidable antagonist of all, turns out to be 
no real foe, and his fall ushers in a happier day from underground" 
(Elsdale). 

1392. He. Malory. The "he" in line 1393 is Tennyson. 

LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

I. Elaine the fair. Note the epithets descriptive of Elaine 
throughout the poem, as gentle, meek, mild, pure, sweet, etc. Notice 
also the similes used in describing her, the lily, the wild-flower, the 
little helpless innocent bird, etc. 

1-27. For this passage there was but a hint in Malory. Elaine 
on being questioned about the shield merely answers, "It is in my 
chamber covered with a case. 

28. How came the lily maid etc. Notice that the story begins in 
the middle of things and then goes back for the needed explanation. 



316 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

36. Tarn. See Gareth and Lynette, 1. 489, note. 

39. For here two brothers. The story of the diamond is not in 
Malory. In the old romance the jousts are between King Arthur 
and the King of Scots on the one hand, and any who would come 
against them on the other. 

65. The heathen. The Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain. Was 
this prophecy fulfilled? 

75. The place. London. 

73-101. The chief facts in these lines come without change from 
Malory. 

106. Myriad. A favorite word with Tennyson, and used in the 
sense of one thing with many forms. Cf. line 169, ** Myriad-wrinkled." 
In Enoch Arden, 1. 579, we have "the myriad shriek of wheeling ocean- 
fowl." 

121. Arthur , my lord, etc. This analysis of Arthur's character is 
not in Malory. The coldness of Arthur and his absorption in his work 
as king are important elements in explaining Guinevere's failure to 
love him. "He cares not for me," she says. Nor does she ever seem 
to realize that he does love her until the end, when she says, "Let no 
one dream but that he loves me still." This whole passage should be 
read in connection with lines 607-68 in Guinevere. The lines 
640-5. 

"I thought I could not breathe in that fine air, 
That pure severity of perfect light — 
I yearn'd for warmth and color which I found 
In Lancelot — now I see thee what thou art 
Thou art the highest and most human too. 
Not Lancelot, nor another," 

designedly recall this passage in Lancelot and Elaine, 

125. Untruth. Here means unfaithfulness. 

130. Vows impossible. What is Merlin's view of these vows? 
(Cf. Gareth and Lynette, IL 266-8.) 

132. He is all fault, etc. Cf. the description of Maud, "Faultily 
faultless, icily regular, splendidly null. ' 

210. The maiden dreamt, etc. A foreshadowing of the occurrence 
in lines 1225-9. So, too, is line 230. 

235. Full courtly, yet not falsely. Cf. Gawain's "courtesy with 
a touch of traitor in it," line 635. 

250. His mood was often like a fiend. Cf. the important passage 
in The Holy Grail, 11. 763-849. 

260. The great knight. In this Idyll we are made to see the 
captivating personality of Lancelot, his grace and courtesy and 
kindliness, his generous recognition of worth in others, his great love 
for the queen, his reverence for King Arthur, his moods of melancholy 
and self-reproach. 

270. Suddenly speaking. Lancelot quickly changes the subject 
because he does not wish to talk of Guinevere. 



NOTES 317 

294. Carved of one emerald. "Tennyson seems to have been 
thinking of the famous 'Russian emerald' said to have been sent 
originally by Pilate to Tiberius. It is supposed to have the head of 
Christ carved upon it, but Mr. King {The Gnostics, p. 146) shows 
good cause against our accepting it as authentic. But the poet has 
taken the detail of the head on the cuirass from Spenser's Arthur; 
* Athwart his brest a bauldrick brave he ware 
That shined, like twinkling stars, with stones most pretious rare. 
And in the midst thereof, one pretious stone, 
Of wondrous worth, and else of wondrous mights, 
Shapt like a Ladle's head, exceeding shone,' etc. 

F. Q., I. vii. 29. 
Spenser is too good a Protestant to say 'shapt like our Ladle's head'; 
he leaves that for the student of antiquities to discover." (Little- 
dale: Essays on Tennyson's Idylls of the King, p. 211.) 

297. The White Horse. The emblem of the Saxons. 

330. As when a painter, etc. Tennyson once asked Mr. Watts 
to describe his ideal of what a trrue portrait-painter should be, and 
these lines embody the substance of Mr. Watts's reply. 

354. Rapt. "Seized with ecstasy," "enraptured." Cf. Milton, 
It Penseroso: "thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes." 

403. In the white rock a chapel, etc. This is the cave in which 
Lancelot was later, during his sickness. This beautiful description 
has as its germ Malory's "that hermitage which was under a wood, 
and a great cliff on the other side, and a fair water running under it." 

422. Pendragon. A chief leader. Composed of two Welsh words, 
pen, "a head," and dragon, "leader." 

423. Talk mysteriously. That is, they talk about the mystery 
of his birth. 

433. The golden dragon. The golden dragon, adopted by Uther 
as the emblem of the Pendragonship, was retained by his son Arthur. 

480. As a wild wave. Mr. Collins (Illustrations of Tennyson, p. 
146) says that this fine simile is "obviously borrowed from the Iliad, 
where it draws on three different similes." "Green-glimmering 
towards the summit" is, he admits, "Tennyson's own fine touch." 
But see the Letter-Diary kept by Tennyson on a trip to Norway in 
1858: "Next day very fine, but in the night towards morning storm 
arose and our topmast was broken off. I stood next morning a long 
time by the cabin door and watched the green sea, looking like a 
mountainous country, far off waves with foam at the top looking like 
snowy mountains bounding the scene ; one great wave, green-shining, 
past with all its crests smoking high up beside the vessel." (Mem. 
I. 428.) 

555. AndGareth. In the first edition of the poem (1859) this read 
"And Lamorak." Gareth and Lynette was written later, and then 
the change in this line was made. 



318 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

636. And cast his eyes on fair Elaine. The whole episode of 
Gawain's courtship of Elaine is added by Tennyson. 

829. Large black eyes. Cf. The Passing of Arthur, 11. 337, 384-5. 
Lancelot and Arthur were opposite types in personal appearance. 

858. Fine care. Compare this use of "fine" with "so fine a fear/' 
in line 592, "the fine Gawain," in line 1047, "fine" as used repeatedly 
in descriptions of Gareth (Gareth and Lynette, 11, 454-6), and "fine" 
and "fineness" in Gareth and Lynette, 1. 466. 

871. His honor, etc. Honor, truth, faithfulness to the queen 
mean dishonor, falseness, unfaithfulness to the king. 

9 1 9. Delay no longer, speak your wish. Cf . Malory, Bk. xviii, chap, 
xix. The frankness with which ladies of mediaeval romance offered 
themselves in marriage to chosen knights made this a difficult passage 
to transfer into a poem so modern in general ethical tone as Tennyson's 
Lancelot and Elaine. "Elaine was exceedingly difficult to do with 
sufficient fineness of touch. Her innocent boldness might well have 
become unmaidenly. . . . She rises to the very verge of innocent 
maidenliness in passionate love, but she does not go over the verge. 
... It was as difficult to represent Elaine as to represent Juliet; 
and Tennyson has succeeded well where Shakespeare has succeeded 
beautifully. It is great praise, but it is well deserved." (Stopford 
Brooke: Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 315.) 

948. Thrice your age. Cf. 1. 256. Why does he somewhat exag- 
gerate his age? How old was Elaine at this time? Cf. 1. 271. 

982. So in her tower, etc. The chief facts in lines 982-1154 are 
from this passage in chap, xix., Bk. xviii. of Malory: "Now speak we 
of the fair maiden of Astolat, that made such sorrow day and night, 
that she never slept, eat, nor drank; and ever she made her complaint 
unto Sir Launcelot. So when she had thus endured a ten days, that 
she feebled so that she must needs pass out of this world, then she 
shrived her clean, and received her Creator. And ever she complained 
still upon Sir Launcelot. Then her ghostly father bade her leave 
such thoughts. Then she said, 'Why should I leave such thoughts? 
am I not an earthly woman? and all the while the breath is in my 
body I may complain me, for my belief is I do none offence though 
I love an earthly man, and I take God to my record I never loved 
none but Sir Launcelot du Lake, nor never shall ; and a pure maiden 
I am for him and for all other. And since it is the sufferance of God 
that I shall die for the love of so noble a knight, I beseech the High 
Father of heaven to have mercy on my soul, and upon mine innumer- 
able pains that I suffered may be allegiance of part of my sins. For 
sweet Lord Jesu,' said the fair maiden, 'I take thee to record, on thee 
I was never great offender against thy laws, but that I loved this 
noble knight Sir Launcelot out of measure, and of myself, good Lord, 
I might not withstand the fervent love, wherefore I have my death.' 
And then she called her father Sir Bernard, and her brother Sir 



NOTES 319 

Tirre, and heartily she prayed her father that her brother might write 
a letter like as she did endite it; and so her father granted her. And 
when the letter was written word by word like as she devised, then she 
prayed her father that she might be watched until she were dead. — 
'And while my body is hot let this letter be put in my right hand, 
and my hand bound fast with the letter till that I be cold, and let 
me be put in a fair bed, with all the richest clothes that I have about 
me, and so let my bed, and all my richest clothes, be laid with me in 
a chariot unto the next place where Thames is, and there let me be 
put within a barget, and but one man with me, such as ye trust to steer 
me thither, and that my barget be covered with black samite, over 
and over. Thus, father, I beseech you, let it be done.' So her father 
granted it her faithfully all things should be done like as she had de- 
vised. Then her father and her brother made great dole, for, when 
this was done, anon she died. And so when she was dead, the corpse, 
and the bed, all was led the next way unto Thames, and there a 
man, and the corpse, and all, were put into Thames, and so the 
man steered the barget unto Westminster, and there he rowed a 
great while to and fro, or any espied it." 

A comparison of the passage just quoted from Malory and the lines 
in Tennyson would be an admirable study in his way of handling 
material. Note what Tennyson leaves out, what he changes, what he 
amplifies, what he condenses, what he adds. 

995. Sallow-rifted glooms of evening. The yellowish streaks of 
light in the dark sky in the evening. 

998. The Song of Love and Death. Stopford Brooke says of this 
song, "This is almost like a piece out of the sonnets of Shakespeare, 
full of his to-and-fro play with words that are thoughts, with the 
same kind of all-pervading emotion in the lines; the same truth to 
the situation and the character of the singer; and with Tennyson's 
deep-seated waters of love — which too rarely come to the surface — 
welling upwards in it." 

1015. The Phantom of the House. The Banshee, a tutelary female 
spirit, supposed to give warning of death or danger. "Every chief 
family in Ireland has its banshee." (Brewer.) 

1158. Hard won. Won with difficulty; hardly won — almost lost. 
Cf. Gareth and Lynette, 1. 147, note. 

1178. Tawnier than the cygnets. The plumage of the full-grown 
swan is pure white, but the cygnets, or the young swans, are grayish 
or brownish. 

1187. These as I trust, etc. "These" is the object of believe. 
Note the repetitions. Cf. 11. 1197-8. 

1217. To her pearls. Referring to Elaine's sleeve embroidered 
with pearls. 

1418. Not knowing, etc. The repentance and death of Lancelot 
are described in full in Malory, xxi., chapters xi., xii. With the 



320 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

"remorseful pain*' of this last soliloquy of Lancelot should be read 
the important passage in The Holy Grail (11. 763-849, 877-83) 
descriptive of his stormy search for the sacred cup, which he finally 
saw, but only "veiled and covered," 

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

6. Their march to westward. After the discovery of the guilt of 
Lancelot and the queen, they fled, he to his own land, and she to the 
nunnery at Almesbury. Arthur went to fight against Lancelot, and 
during the absence of the king, Modred usurped the throne. Arthur 
then marched against him, stopping at Almesbury on the way for a 
last interview with Guinevere. The night described here is the night 
before the battle. 

9. I found Him, etc. While God's ways in the world of nature 
seem clear enough. His dealings with men seem full of mystery and 
contradiction. Arthur has devoted his life to God's service, yet he 
feels now that God has forgotten him. The three things which meant 
most to him, his kingdom, his wife, and his friend, have failed him 
in the end. Compare these sad words with his earlier hopes. His 
knights he had counted the "fair beginners of a nobler time." Of 
Guinevere he had said: 

"But were I joined with her 
Then might we live together as one life. 
And reigning with one will in everything 
Have power on this dark land to lighten it, 
And power on this dead world to make it live." 
His word to Lancelot had been: 

"Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death." 
And now his realm was "reeling back into the beast," he had said 
farewell to his wife, he had fought with his friend. On the night 
before the enforced battle with his own knights he faces the thought 
of death. There is no touch of hope in the sad soliloquy until we come 
to the exclamation in the last line (1. 28). 

31. The ghost of Gawain. In Dante's Inferno, Canto V., the pun- 
ishment of carnal sinners is described as follows: "The infernal 
hurricane that never rests carries along the spirits .• . . ; whirling 
and smiting it molests them . . . hither, thither, down, up it carries 
them; no hope ever comforts them, not of repose, but even of less 
pain." (Charles Eliot Norton's translation.) 

35. Isle of rest. Avilion. A prophecy of Arthur's death. 

69. The Roman wall. The wall built by the Romans to protect the 
northern frontier of their British province from the Picts, barbarians 
inhabiting the northern part of Britain (now Scotland). 

81. Lyonesse. Supposed to have stretched from Cornwall to 
Scilly, but later to have been submerged. 

90. That day. At the v/inter solstice. The romance says, "On a 
Monday after Trinity Sunday." 



NOTES 321 

95. A death-white mist. Throughout this passage the mist, the 
"shroud of death- white fog," not only makes the actual conflict 
chaotic and wantonly disastrous, but likewise symbolizes the doubt 
and confusion in Arthur's soul. It is important to observe how the 
mist is inwoven with the battle. Each little climax in the description 
ends with the mist. 

129. The wan wave, etc. In this passage the ocean becomes 
almost a sentient element in the way it adds to the misery of Arthur. 
Its cruel indifference, its pitiless suggestions of "days of old and days 
to be," intensify the mental confusion that has fallen upon the king. 

1 70. So all day long. From this point to line 440 we have Ten- 
nyson's early poem of Morte d' Arthur. 

199. Clothed in white samite. Cf. 11. 312, 327. The line recurs 
like a refrain. 

214. In the moon, etc. The fine effects of moonlight through 
this poem are due entirely to Tennyson. 

352. He heard, etc. Note the sharp, metallic sounds of this 
passage. 

365. Black'Stoled. Clad in long, loose black robes reaching to 
the feet. 

366. Three Queens. Cf. Gareth and Lynette, 11. 224r-6, and note. 

367. Shiver'd to the tingling stars. Is this extravagant speech 
justified? 

390. Not like that Arthur. All the splendor and hope in The 
Coming of Arthur is brought by this comparison to intensify the 
desolation and sadness of the present. 

434. Like some full-breasted swan. Cf. Shakespeare: 
**Pale swan in her watery nest 
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending." 
And Byron (Isles of Greece): 

"There swan-like let me sing and die." 
As a matter of fact swans have most discordant notes, and they do 
not sing their own elegy. But the literary convention concerning 
the swan has the sanction of antiquity and has a poetic significance. 

MARIANA 

[First published in 1830. Not much changed in succeeding editions.] 
The suggestion for this poem came from Shakespeare's Measure for 
Measure, III. i. 216-81. Mariana is a lady who had been betrothed 
to Angelo, but, on the loss of her dowry, had been deserted by him. 
Five years had elapsed since she had seen him, but she still "wore 
lamentation" for his sake. The Duke says of her, "At the moated 
grange resides this dejected Mariana." In Act IV. sc. i. she speaks 
of her continued grief, and gives a little picture of herself as "sitting 
here all day" in the lonely house. From such hints Tennyson built 
up the poem. Mr. Walters in In Tennyson Land gives an elaborate 



322 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

description of an old farmhouse near Somersby and known as "the 
grange," and identifies it as the building from which Tennyson made 
his study. But the poet says {Mem. I. 4), "The Moated Grange is 
an imaginary house in the fen. I never so much as dreamed of 
Baumber's farm as the abode of Mariana." 

1. Flower-plots. Tennyson, at the beginning of his work, had "an 
absurd antipathy," he tells us, to the use of the hyphen, so he wrote 
all compounds as one word. (Mem. I. 50.) In this poem he wrote 
**flowerplots," "marishmosses," "casementcurtain," "thickmoted," 
etc. There were other archaisms in these early poems (1830, 1833), 
such as elisions and accented final syllables in past participles. For 
instance, he wrote "up an' away" (1. 50), "i' the pane" (1. 63), 
"gnarlM" (1. 42). But in the revision of 1842 he returned to ordinary 
modes of expression. 

18. Did trance. Cf. '*did mark" (1. 43), *'did all confound" (1. 76), 
as examples of the poetical past indefinite tense. This device is 
sometimes used with fine effect, as in the lines quoted, but often 
the "do" or "did" is but a weak way of filling out a line. 

26. NigM'fowl. Were it not for the fact that the cock is men- 
tioned in line 27, the crowing of the night-fowl would naturally be 
interpreted as the "crowing of the cock." Possibly the reference is 
to the "night-crow," a bird traditionally ranking with the raven, 
the bat, and the owl, as a bird of ill omen. Mr. Van Dyke suggests 
that it may be the cry of water-fowl passing over in the night. 

31. Gray-eyed. A traditional epithet for morning. 

40. Marish-mosses. Marsh-mosses, mosses growing on low, wet 
ground. 

41. Poplar. The white poplar, the leaves of which are white on 
one side and green on the other, and are in continual agitation. The 
bark of the lower part of the trunk is dark and furrowed. 

43. Mark. "Dark" was the early reading. Why did he 
change it? 

63. The blue fly, etc. The silence of the house is emphasized by 
the description of noises usually unnoticed. For this passage com- 
pare Maudt I. vi. 68-74: 

"Living alone in an empty house. 
Here half-hid in the gleaming wood, 
Where I hear the dead at middajr moan, 
And the shrieking rush of the wainscot-mouse, 
And my own sad name in corners cried, 
When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 
About its echoing chambers wide." 

And this from Guinevere, 11. 60-72: 

"In the dead night, grim faces came and went 
Before her, or a vague spiritual fear — 
Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors, 
Heard by the watcher in a haunted house." 



NOTES 323 

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 

[First printed in 1830. Only slight verbal changes in succeeding 
editions.] 

•*The matter of the poem and the imagery are, of course, simply 
transferred from the gorgeous description of Harun al Rashid's 
Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis 
al Talis, *Thirty-Sixth-Night.' " (Collins: Illustrations of Tennyson, 
p. 28.) This is an interesting poem to study for the richness of its 
sense impressions. The moonlight journey (stanzas 2-10) has four 
parts, on the river, on the canal, on the lake, in the garden. Can 
you re-create in detail the poet^s pictures? Explain, for instance, the 
position of the central fountain in stanza 5. Also 1. 4 of stanza 4. 

The poem gives the impression of an abundance of trees, shrubs, 
flowers. Note every word or phrase contributing to this effect. 
Study all the appeals to the eye by color, form, or motion. Are all 
the facts so noted appropriate in a moonlight picture? How much 
of the charm of the picture comes through sound? Note how rich 
are the impressions from odor. Study stanzas 2-10 for the purpose of 
observing all the elements of the picture that betray the hand of man. 
In what way is the song of the nightingale a climax in the im- 
pressions made by the scene? 

Note the large number of compound words. Originally they were 
written without the hyphen, as one word. 



THE POET 

[First published in 1830. Slight changes in succeeding editions.] 
It is interesting to compare Tennyson's conception of the grandeur 
of a poet's destiny with the utterances of other poets on the 
same theme. Take, for instance, Wordsworth's account of his 
call to poetry, when he felt that *'vows were made for him," that he 
was "a dedicated spirit, else sinning greatly" (.Prelude, iv. 319-38), 
and his final summary of his mission as a poet {Recluse, 11. 664-703). 
Cf. also Shelley's Skylark: 

"Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden 

lill the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not." 

Shelley also represents the poet as "the companionless Sensitive 
Plant," whose dower is a deep heart full of love, and a longing for the 
beautiful. In Adonais the passion-winged thoughts of the poet are 
represented as wandering from "kindling brain to brain" and with 
power to 

"pierce the guarded wit 

And pass into the panting heart beneath 

With lightning and with music." 



324 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

3. Dower'd with, etc. An ambiguous expression. Does it mean 
that he hated hatred, scorned scorn, loved love, or does it mean that 
the poet had hatred, scorn, and love in quintessence? The second 
meaning is more subtle, but passages in Tennyson's Memoir would 
lead one to infer that he had the first meaning in mind. "Tennyson 
was very grand on contemptuousness. It was, he said, a sure sign of 
intellectual littleness. ... It is a little or immature or uneducated 
mind that readily despises." (Wilfred Ward's Talks with Tennyson, 
quoted in Mem. II. 380.) The Duke of Argyle in describing a walk 
with Tennyson says, "He suddenly stopped, turned round, confronted 
me, and said, 'I hate scorn,' with an emphasis which showed how 
deep-seated in his nature that hatred was." 

13. Indian reeds. "Blowpipes such as the South American 
Indians use for shooting arrows." (Van Dyke: Poems of Tennyson. 
p. 430.) 

1 5. Calpe unto Caucasus. From Gibraltar to the Caucasus Moun- 
tains, conventional eastern and western limits of the ancient world. 

19. Field flower. The dandelion. 

39. Rites and forms. Was this Tennyson's later attitude towards 
"rites and forms"? Cf. Intro., p. 45. 

THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
[First published in 1833. Greatly revised in 1842.] 

This poem was suggested by an Italian romance upon the Donna 
di Scalotta, in which Camelot, unlike the Celtic tradition, was placed 
near the sea. (Palgrave: Lyrical Poems by Lord Tennyson, j). 257.) 
The legend reappears in the Idylls of the King as the story of Elaine, 
the maid of Astolat. 

As to the comparative value of the two versions of this poem, 
that of 1833 and that of 1842, there has been considerable difference 
of opinion. In the review by Spedding m the Edinburgh (April, 
1843) we read: "The poems originally published in 1832 are many 
of them largely altered; generally with great judgment, and always 
with a view to strip off redundancies, to make the expression simpler 
and clearer, to substitute thought for imagery and substance for 
shadow. 'The Lady of Shalott,' for instance, is stripped of all her 
finery; her pearl garland, her velvet bed, her royal apparel, and her 
blinding diamond bright,' are all gone; and certainly in the simple 
white robe which she now wears, her beauty shows to much greater 
advantage." (Mem. I. 191.) Mrs. Fanny Kemble, on the other 
hand, in the Democratic Review (January, 1844), took the ground that 
all the revisions were for the worse. The following quotations from 
the poem of 1833 give the passages in which the revision was most 
radical. Do any of these passages justify Mrs. Kemble's opinion? 
Or are they all inferior to the revised form as you have it in your 
text? 



NOTES 326 

Lines 6-12 were, 

*'The yellowleaved waterlily, 
The greensheathed daffodilly, 
Tremble in the water chilly, 
Round about Shalott. 

"Willows whiten, aspens shiver. 
The sunbeam-showers break and quiver 
In the stream that runneth ever," etc. 
Lines 19-35 were, 

"Underneath the bearded barley, 
The reaper, reaping late and early. 
Hears her ever chanting cheerly. 
Like an angel, singing clearly 

O'er the stream of Camelot. 
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy, 
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary 
Listening whispers, * 'Tis the fairy 
Lady of Shalott.' 

"The little isle is all inrailed 
With a rose-fence, and overtrailed 
With roses: by the marge unbailed 
The shallop flitteth silkensailed. 

Skimming down to Camelot. 
A pearlgarland winds her head: 
She leaneth on a velvet bed, 
Full royally apparelled. 

The Lady of Shalott." 

Part II. began, 

"No time hath she to sport and play; 
A charmed web she weaves alway. 
A curse is on her, if she stay 
Her weaving, either night or day, 

To look down to Camelot. 
She knows not what the curse may be; 
Therefore she weaveth steadily, 
Therefore no other care hath she. 

The Lady of Shalott. 

"She lives with little joy or fear. 
Over the water, running near. 
The sheepbell tinkles in her ear. 
Before her hangs a mirror clear. 

Reflecting towered Camelot. 
But as the mazy web she whirls. 
She sees the surly village-churls," etc. 

Following the first stanza in Part IV. was this stanza, entirely 
omitted in later versions, 

"A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight. 
All raimented in snowy white 
That loosely flew (her zone in sight, 
C^lasped with one blinding diamond bright). 

Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot, 
Though the squally east wind keenly 
Blew, with folded arms serenely 
By the water stood the queenly 
Lady of Shalott." 



326 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

The third stanza of Part IV. began as follows, 

"With a steady, stony glance — 
Like some bold seer in a trance, 
Beholding all his own mischance, 
Mute, with a glassy countenance — 

She looked down to Camelot. 
It was the closing of the day," etc. 

The four closing stanzas are as here given: 

"As when to sailors while they roam, 
By creeks and outfalls far from home. 
Rising and dropping with the foam. 
From dying swans wild warblings come. 

Blown shoreward; so to Camelot 
Still as the boathead wound along 
The willowy hills and fields among, 
They heard her chanting her deathsong. 

The Lady of Shalott. 

"A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy. 
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly, 
Till her eyes were darkened wholly. 
And her smooth face sharpened slowly, 
Turned to towered Camelot,'* etc. 

"Under tower and balcony. 
By gardenwaU and gallery, 
A pale, pale corpse she floated by, 
Deadcold between the houses high. 
Dead into towered Camelot. 

"Knight and burgher, lord and dame. 
To the planked wharfage came: 
Below the stern they read her name, 
•The Lady of Shalott.' 

"They crossed themselves, their stars they blest. 
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest. 
There lay a parchment on her breast. 
That puzzled more than all the rest, 
The wellfed wits at Camelot. 
*The web was woven curiously , 
The charm is broken utterly. 
Draw near and fear not — this is /, 
The Lady of Shalott.' " 

In other portions of the poem the changes were slight. Part III. 
is very nearly as in the original version. 

7. Where the lilies blow. Note that in the earlier version the 
daffodilly was associated with the waterlily. Is the daffodil a water 
plant? 

1 1 . Little breezes dusk and shiver. Mrs. Kemble on this line 
says, "Little breezes dusking do v/hat we do not understand, and 
shivering do what they make other people do." Do you agree with 
this criticism? Do you prefer the original Hne, 

"The sunbeam-showers break and quiver"? 



NOTES 327 

20. Slide the heavy barges. Mrs. Kemble calls this *'a canal-like 
image." Do you prefer the picture of the "rose-fence"? 

24. Bvi who hath, etc. Of these three lines Mr. Van Dyke says, 
''Instead of a luscious description of a garden and apparel, he gives 
us the contrast between the outer world of activity and the Lady's 
self -cent ere^d solitude." 

30. Echoes. Which is preferable, the * "echoes" or the "like an 
angel" of the earlier version? 

38. A magic web. The web is the life of fancy in which the young 
girl lives. In the magic mirror are shows of life, suggestive and inter- 
esting, but remote. 

69. Or when the moon. Tennyson called these lines the key to the 
symbolism of the tale. "The new-born love for something, for some 
one in the wide world from which she has been so long secluded, 
takes her out of the region of shadows into that of realities." (Mem. 
I. 117.) But the explanation does not seem to be very clear. It 
does not, indeed, seem necessary to find an allegorical meaning for a 
poem so purely fanciful. We may read Mariana as the German poet 
Freiligrath read it, for "its sweet and dreamy melancholy." 

78. A red-cross knight. A reminiscence of Spenser's knight in 
the first book of the Faerie Queene. 

147. Till her blood. In the earher version this is, "and her smooth 
face sharpened slowly." Which line do you prefer as descriptive of 
death? 

168. But Lancelot. Note the dignity and pathos of this close 
compared with the colloquial character of the original. 

THE PALACE OF ART 
When Trench and Tennyson were at Trinity together. Trench said 
one day in conversation, "Tennyson, we can not live in art." This 
is the germ from which the poem grew. It was written by April 
10, 1832. (See letter by Arthur Hallam, Mem. I. 85.) It was first 
published in the volume of 1832-3. The poem was altered so much 
before 1842 as to be nearly re-written. Tennyson greatly disliked 
variorum readings. He said that for himself many passages in 
Wordsworth and other poets had been entirely spoiled by the modern 
habit of giving every various reading along with the text. Of his 
own poems he said that he gave the people of his best, and that he 
wished that best might be unaccompanied by "the chips of the 
workshop." 

"Why do they cherish the rubbish I shot from my full-finish'd cantos?" 
he asked. (Mem. I. 118.) Yet in Tennyson's poetry the comparison 
of early and later versions of a poem is one certain way of feeling his 
power as an artist. Stopford Brooke (Tennyson, His Art and Rela- 
tion to Modern Life, p. 85) says of The Palace of Art, "As we read 
it in the volume of 1833, it has many weak lines. So far as com- 



328 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

position goes, it is often all awry. . . . But as we read it in the 
volume of 1842, when it had received eight years of recasting and 
polishing, it is one of the most perfect of Tennyson's poems. To 
compare the first draft of this poem with the second, is not only to 
receive a useful lesson in the art of poetry — it is also to understand, 
far better than by any analysis of his life, a great part of Tennyson's 
character: his impatience for perfection, his steadiness in pursuit of 
it, his power of taking pains, the long intellectual consideration he 
gave to matters which originated in the emotions, his love of balancing 
this and that form of his thought against one another, and when the 
balancing was done, the unchangeableness of his acceptance of one 
form and of his rejection of another; and, finally, correlative with 
these qualities, his want of impulse and rush in song, as in life — 
English, not Celtic at all." In the space here at command only 
the more important variations can be given. 

The poem is an allegory, and frankly didactic. It is Tennyson's 
protest against what he called the *'Art heresy." The poem is "the 
embodiment of his belief that the Godlike life is with man and for 
man." (Mem. I. 118.) Cf. Intro., p. 62. It is not known to whom 
the blank verse dedication was addressed. **For you are an artist" 
was the reading of line 2 in 1832, but this was changed afterward to 
the more general form. 

7. Level. In 1832, "great broad." Why is "level" preferable? 

15. While Saturn whirls. "The shadow of Saturn thrown upon 
the bright ring that surrounds the planet appears motionless, though 
the body of the planet revolves. Saturn rotates on its axis in the 
short space of ten and a half hours, but the shadow of this swiftly 
whirling mass shows no more motion than is seen in the shadow of a 
top spinning so rapidly that it seems to be standing still." (Rowe 
and Webb, quoted by Collins: The Early Poems of Tennyson, p. 86.) 

54-56. In the earlier version, 

"That over- vaulted grateful glooms 
Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass 
Ending in stately rooms." 

Why should these lines be changed? 
65-68. In the earlier version, 

"Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land 
- Lit with a low round moon, 
Among brown rocks a man upon the sand 
Went weeping all alone." 
Why is the revised picture so much more beautiful? 
69-80. The three beautiful pictures in these lines were added in 
1842. 
81-84. In 1833 the stanza read, 

"One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags, 
Below sun-smitten icy spires 
Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags, 
Deep trenched with thunder fires." 



NOTES 329 

61-84. All but two of these pictures are purely English in tone. 
The fifth is a southern picture; the sixth is reminiscent of mountain 
travel in Spain or Switzerland. Note that each picture is perfect 
in four lines, and that in so restricted a compass all needed details 
are nevertheless given so that a painter could hardly make the effect 
clearer. This power of making complete, highly-finished yet highly- 
suggestive pictures in a few lines was one of Tennyson's especial 
accomplishments in poetry, and no one had done it in the same fashion 
before him. 

94. Tracts of pasture. In 1833 "yellow pasture." Which do 
you prefer? 

99. St. Cecily. The patron saint of music, particularly of church 
music. She is usually represented in art as playing on some musical 
instrument, or as looking up toward an angel drawn down from 
heaven by the music of the saint. The name is ordinarily written 
*'St. Cecilia." See pictures by Raphael and Rubens. 

102. Houris. According to the Moslem faith the Houris are 
beautiful maidens who will be in paradise as companions of true 
believers. The Moslems are also called Islamites. The word in the 
next line refers to Mahomet, the founder of the Moslem faith. 

111. Ausonian. An old name for Italy. The picture is of Numa 
Pompilius, the reputed second king of Rome, and the nymph Egeria, 
who instructed him in matters of state and religion. 

115. Cama. Camadeo, the Cupid or God of Love of the Hin- 
doos. 

1 1 7. Europa. A sister of Cadmus. She was carried to Delphi by 
Zeus, who had taken upon himself the form of a white bull. Which 
do you prefer, line 117 as it stands or the form of 1833, 

"Europa's scarf blew in an arch, unclasped"? 

\2l. Ganymede. A beautiful Trojan youth carried to Olympus 
by the eagle of Zeus, and made immortal. He became cup-bearer 
to the gods. 

126. Caucasian. "The Caucasian range forms the north-west 
margin of the great tableland of Western Asia, and as it was the 
home of those races who afterwards peopled Europe and Western 
Asia and so became the fathers of civilization and culture, the 'Su- 
preme Caucasian mind' is a historically correct but certainly recon- 
dite expression for the intellectual flower of the human race, for the 
perfection of human ability." (Collins: Early Poems of Tennyson, 
p. 91.) 

128. After this series of paintings it was in Tennyson's original 
plan to introduce a series of sculptures, but he found it the most 
difficult of all things to devise a statue in verse. (Mem. I. 119.) 
He completed but two sculptures. One of them was the following 
description of Elijah: 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

"One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed. 
As when he stood on Carmel-steeps 
With one arm stretch'd out bare, and mock'd and said, 
'Come, cry aloud, he sleeps.' 
"Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloalc wind-borne 
Behind, his forehead heavenly bright 
From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn, 
Lit as with inner light." 

133-140. This passage was, in 1833, 

"There deep-haired Milton like an angel tall 
Stood limned, Shakespeare bland and mild. 
Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wall 
The bald blind Homer smiled." 

In few passages is the revision a more striking improvement. 
Notice in detail the changed effect of the portraits of Milton, Dante, 
and Homer. Do you think the epithets "bland and mild" so apt 
for Shakespeare that no change was needed? In To TV. C. Macready 
Tennyson speaks of Shakespeare's "bland and universal eye." 

1 37. The Ionian father. Homer, the great Greek poet. He wrote 
in the Ionic dialect. 

137-164. All of this was added in 1842. 

149-156. A picture of the state of society in France during the 
French Revolution. 

160. In the version of 1833 were three stanzas descriptive of the 
banquet the soul enjoyed. It was made up of "flavorous fruits," 
**ambrosial pulps and juices," "musk-scented blooms," "chalices of 
curious wine," and served in golden baskets, costly jars, and embossed 
salvers. In 1842 this was omitted as putting too much emphasis on 
the sensuous. 

163. Verulam. Lord Bacon is classed with Plato as "first of 
those who know." "Dante (Inf. iv. 131) applies the phrase to 
Aristotle, — 'il maestro di color che sanno.* " (Collins: Illustrations 
of Tennyson, p. 44.) The epithet Large-hrow'd was suggested by 
NoUekens's bust in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
(Palgrave: Lyrical Poems by Lord Tennyson, p. 248.) 

165. Motion, etc. In their mental activity they were original, 
and they led the way to new conceptions. 

171. Memnon. A colossal statue near Thebes. It was said to 
emit music when the rays of the morning sun struck it. It was 
attributed to Memnon, the son of Aurora. 

174. Her low preamble. "The nightingale with long and low 
preamble," is a line in a sonnet of 1831. Hallam said the image was 
"worth an estate in Golconda." {Mem. I. SO.) It is the male night- 
ingale who sings. Cf. 1. 95 of The Gardener's Daughter. Spenser, 
Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, and many modern poets, as Cowper, 
Shelley, Keats, make the singing nightingale female. This false 
ornithology probably grew out of the story of the girl Philomela, 
who, in Greek myth, was changed into a nightingale. 



NOTES 331 

176. Throh thro*. **She hears her voice echoing through the 
vaulted rooms." (Rolfe: Select Poems of Tennyson, p. 220.) 

185. Alter this line in 1833 stood 

"She lit white streams of dazzling gas." 

"This was written when the use of gas for illuminating purposes 
was new, and not considered unromantic. When the Palace was 
remodeled the gas was turned off and the supper was omitted." 
(Van Dyke: The Poetry of Tennyson, ''The Palace of Art.'*) 

193-204. Added in 1851. ** These lines are essential to the 
understanding of the poem. They touch the very core of the sin 
which defiled the Palace and destroyed the soul's happiness. It 
was not merely that she loved beauty and music and fragrance; but 
that in her love for these she lest her moral sense, denied her 
human duties, and scorned, instead of pitying and helping, her 
brother-men who lived in the plain below." (Van Dyke: The 
Poetry of Tennyson, ''The Palace of Art,'*) 

213. The riddle of the painful earth. Cf. The Two Voices, 1. 170; 
The Miller's Daughter. 11. 19^ 20; Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey: 

"In which the burthen of the mystery. 
In which the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world." 

223. The abysmal deeps of Personality. This phrase was made 
fun of by Tennyson's college friends. Vhey asked liim if it referred 
to The Times newspaper. It is, however, a stron:; expression. It is 
of interest to note that he quoted it from l. sentence by Arthur Hallam, 
in which he spoke of God, *'with whom alone rest the abysmal secrets 
of personality." 

227. Mene. Cf. Daniel v. 25. 

237. BvX in dark corners, etc. The soul has deliberately isolated 
herself from the world, but the knowledge of its tragedies and sins 
and griefs presses in upon her consciousness. 

242. Fretted. " * Worm-eaten,' used in the sense of the German 
fressen.** (Palgrave: Lyrical Poems by Lord Tennyson, p. 248.) 

245. In the three following figures the idea is the same. The 
spot of stagnation, the salt pool, and the star are separated from 
their normal modes of activity, and they thus represent the soul who 
has shut herself away from the life that was naturally hers. See 
lines 263-4. 

249-252. A perfectly finished Lincolnshire picture. 

255. Circumstance. An old phrase for the surrounding sphere 
of the heavens. 

293. Pull not down. When the soul has learned the lesson of 
human sympathy she finds the way to make her beautiful Palace 
not the home of despair but the home of joy and hope. She no longer 
lives in it alone, but shares it with the very people she before despised. 



333 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

THE LOTOS-EATERS 

This poem was one of those read in manuscript by Tennyson's 
Cambridge friends in 1832 (Mem. I. 86). It was published in the 
volume of 1833, and received some changes before its re-publication 
in 1842. It is founded on the Odyssey^ ix. 83 pp. 

"On the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotos-eaters, who 
eat a flowery food. So we stepped ashore and drew water, and 
straightway my company took their midday meal by the swift ships. 
Now when we had tasted meat and drink, I sent forth certain of my 
company to go and make search what manner of men they were who 
here live upon the earth by bread, and I chose out two of my fellows, 
and sent a third with them as herald. Then straightway they went 
and mixed with the men of the lotos-eaters, and so it was that the 
lotos-eaters devised not death for our fellows, but gave them of the 
lotos to taste. Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet 
fruit of the lotos, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, 
but there he chose to abide with the lotos-eating men, ever feeding 
on the lotos, and forgetful of his homeward way. Therefore I led 
them back to the ships weeping, and sore against their will, and 
dragged them beneath the benches and bound them in the hollow 
barques." (Translation of Butcher and Lang.) 

Mr. Collins has pointed out that the poem owes much to Bion and 
Moschus, and that Spenser (F. Q., Bk. II., Canto vi., description of 
the Idle Lake) and Thomson (Castle of Indolence) are also potent 
influences. The first division of the poem is written in the Spenserian 
stanza, the stanza of The Faerie Queene and The Castle of Indolence. 
An elaborate statement of the many parallelisms to Greek and English 
poems may be found in CoUins's Illustrations of Tennyson. 

7. Full-faced above the valley. In 1833, 

"Above the valley burned the golden moon." 

Which of these lines is more in harmony with line 38? 

1 1 . Slow-drop-ping veils. Of what kind of waterfall would these 
lines be a good description? 

14. River seaward flow. In the earlier version Tennyson wrote 
"river's seaward." He changed it because he disliked the hissing 
sound of the letter s when it ended one word and came at the 
beginning of the following one. He was disturbed because a line, 
"And freedom slowly broadens down" 

was often quoted, 

"And freedom broadens slowly down." 

Getting rid of these sibilations he called "kicking the geese out of the 
basket." (Mem. II. 14.) 

16. Three silent pinnacles, etc. In 1833, 

• • Three thunder-cloven thrones of oldest snow. " 



NOTES 333 

Which line do you prefer? Does "thunder" seem to you to mar the 
picture? 

23. Galingale. A kind of sedge, of the Papyrus species. 

28. That enchanted stem. The lotos of this poem is not the 
Egyptian water-lily but the mildly sweet fruit of a tree of northern 
Africa, the Lotus Zizyphus. 

38. Between the sun and moon. Combine this line with the scenic 
details of stanzas 1 and 2, and reproduce the picture. In what direc- 
tion east or west, was the boat going? Is it unusual for the setting 
sun to be still above the horizon after the full moon has risen? 

iti. Most weary seem'd the sea. Tennyson in 1830 in The Sea 
Fairies made a preliminary attempt at a reproduction of a classical 
theme taken from The Odyssey and representing the Siren call of 
the land to mariners weary of the ocean. The joys depicted in that 
poem ar^ much more positive and active than those of The Lotos- 
Eaters. In the 1830 version of The Sea Fairies the weariness of the 
sea was also emphasized. In the poem as it now stands, however, 
this element was minimized because it had been so strongly worked 
out in The Lotos-Eaters. 

46-56. Note in this stanza the soft, cool impressions of touch, 
the extreme slowness and gentleness of motion, the absence of color, 
and the absence of sound except for the very sweet and gentle music. 

51. Than tir'd, etc. This line has apparently but eight syllables, 
but the word "tir'd" has "a long, drawling sound which corresponds 
to the sense. The lengthened quantity makes up for the missing 
syllable." (Van Dyke: Poem,s by Tennyson, i). 3^7.) 

64. Nor ever fold our wings. Cf. the temper of these mariners 
and that of Ulysses. 

70-83. For the sentiment of this passage compare "Consider the 
lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." 
Matt. vi. 28. 

111. With those. Originally with the. Why is "those" prefer- 
able? 

114-132. Added in 1842. This musing over the probable state 
of affairs in their island-home, Ithaca, adds a note of reality and 
human interest to the poem. 

132. Pilot-stars. In the days of Ulysses what means would 
sailors have of determining direction? 

133. Amaranth and moly. *'Moly" is the medicinal plant that 
Hermes gave Ulysses to protect him against Circe, the enchantress. 
Cf. Milton, Comus. 

"... that moly 
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave." 

Also Odyssey (Cowper's translation), 

"The root was black, 
Milk-white the blossom; moly is its name 
In heaven." 



334 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

145. Barren. The original word here was flowery. Do you prefer 

the changed picture? 

150-173. These lines were new in 1842. The original forty lines 
were almost entirely descriptive of the natural charms of "the golden 
vale of the Lotos-land." The meter was a combination of short 
lines, mostly tetrameter, with occasional long swinging lines of seven 
beats. The close of the poem as it now stands contains (11. 155-70) 
a description of the gods of Lucretius, whose selfish, indifferent lives 
in their golden abodes, while men suffer and toil, are represented as 
analogous to the lives of ease chosen by the Lotos-eaters, no matter 
w^hat the confusion may be in "the little isle," their home. 

165. An ill-us'd race of men, etc. In the poems of 1842 Tennyson 
for the first time showed strong sympathies with ordinary human 
nature. For a similar picture of the seamy side of life sympathetically 
portrayed see Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. (Cf. Intro., ^. 39.) 

"OF OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS" 
One of Tennyson's poems of patriotism. It was published in 1842 

(together with ''You ask me why" and '*Love thou thy land''), but v/as 

written by 1833 {Mem. I. 506). 

1. Of old. Periods of history before ideals of freedom were at all 

common. 

9. Then slept, etc. A description of the gradual revelation of 

freedom through the course of English history. 

14. Her isle-altar. England. 

15. Triple forks. The thunder-bolts of Jove. Suggested by the 
old Latin phrase trisulca fulmina. (Palgrave: Lyrical Poems by 
Tennyson, p. 261.) 

18. T?ie wisdom of a thousand years. Illustrates Tennyson's con- 
servatism. Cf. Intro., p. 45. 
. 24. The falsehood of extremes. Cf . stanza 8 of "Love thou thy land": 

"Not clinging to some ancient saw; 

Not master' d by some modern term; 
Nor swift nor slow to change, but firm: 
And in its season bring the law." 

THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER 
One of the English Idylls in the volume of 1842, but written in part, 
perhaps entirely, by 1833 (Mem. I. 130). The sub-title, The Pic- 
tures, indicates the rather artificial plan of the poem. In form it 
is a dramatic monologue, but the auditor is not a real presence until 
the unveiling of the portrait at the end. As examples of the rich 
and the unadorned style this poem and Dora should be compared. 
Cf. Intro., T). 40. 

28. More black than ashbuds. Cf. Intro., p. 30. 
38. The minster clock. Mr. Walters in In Tennyson Land calls 
this poem the brightest and sweetest of the pictures of Lincolnshire. 



NOTES 335 

The locality, he says, is the vale of Witham. The minster, then, 
would be Lincoln Cathedral, seen across the Witham River. 

47. The lime. The branches of the lime are spreading and 
pendulous, and they divide and subdivide into numerous rami- 
fications, on which the spray is small and thick. The word ''feath- 
ers" refers to this light, drooping spray. The lime is much loved 
of bees. The far-famed honey of Hybla was due to the lime-trees 
that covered its sides and crowned its summit. (Keeler: Our Native 
Trees, pp. 24-30.) 

93. Mellow ouzel. "Tennyson told Rawnsley (p. 101) that this 
was the line on which he prided himself most. *I believe,' he said, 
'that I was the first to describe the ouzel's note as a flute note.' " 
(Van Dyke: Poems by Tennyson, p. 381.) The ouzel is a species of 
thrush. 

94. The red-cap. The Duke of Argyle wrote to Tennyson pro- 
testing against the /expression "the red-cap whistled," thinking the 
poet must have meant the "black-cap," but Tennyson explained that 
when he was a lad "red-cap" was provincial for "gold-finch." (Mem, 
I. 451.) Grahame in Birds of Scotland says of the gold-finch, 

"How beautiful his plumes; his red-ringed head; 
His breast of brown; . . . 
He wings his way piping his shrillest call." 

116. Garden-glasses. Glasses used for covering plants. 

133. Into greener circles. Fairies are traditionally described as 
dancing in circles by moonlight. The circles where they have danced 
are marked by a more vivid green. 

136. Hebe. In Greek mythology the goddess of youth and 
spring. Before the advent of Ganymede she was the cup-bearer of 
Olympus. 

161. Till every daisy. The English daisy closes at night. The 
*' white star of love" is the planet Venus, seen here as the evening star. 

167. Titianic Flora. Flora is the Greek goddess of flowers. 
There is a famous picture of her by Titian in the Uffizi gallery in 
Florence. The colors of the picture are very brilliant. 

186. A Dutch love for tulips. In Holland the mania for the culti- 
vation of tulips began about 1634. In 1636 tulip marts were estab- 
lished in prominent cities in Holland and tulip bulbs were sold and 
re-sold in the same manner as stocks are in a stock-market. Although 
"tulipomania" as an epidemic has long had its day, tulips are still 
very popular in Holland. 

248. The leaves that tremble. Tennyson "records that one night 
he 'saw the moonlight reflected in a nightingale's eye, as she was 
singing in the hedgerow.' He adds that her voice vibrated with such 
passion that he wrote of 

The leaves 
That tremble round the nightingale 
in 'The Gardener's Daughter.' " (Mem. I. 79.) 



336 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

ST. SIMEON STYLITES 

There were two saints known as St. Simeon. Of these, the one 
known as St. Simeon the Elder was born at Sisan in Syria about 390, 
and was buried at Antioch about 460. Simeon the Younger was 
born at Antioch 521, and died 592. "The main lines in the story of 
both saints are exactly the same. Both stood on columns, both 
tortured themselves in the same ways, both wrought miracles, and 
both died at their posts of penance." (Collins: The Early Poems 
of Tennyson, p. 174.) The memoirs of both saints were given in 
the Acta Sanctorum, but Tennyson went for his information to 
The Every Day Book published by William Hone in 1826, and in 
Hone's account the memoirs of the two saints have apparently been 
amalgamated. 

The name Stylites means "of the pillar," but St. Simeon stands in 
Tennyson's poem as the type not only of the "pillar saints" but of 
all men who count the mortification of the flesh an incontrovertible 
claim on the favor of heaven. Southey's Curse of Kehama is a drama 
illustrating one phase of the belief of St. Simeon, namely, that prayers, 
said in whatever spirit, are "a draft that the bank of heaven must 
honor." As St. Agnes represents the tender and mystical and self- 
forgetful side of the monastic spirit, so St. Simeon Stylites represents 
the harsh, self-conscious side of the same spirit. Cf. Intro., p. 52. 
Tennyson's continued interest in this phase of monasticism is shown 
by the character of King Pellam in Balin and Balan. 

St. Simeon Stylites was first published in 1842, but it was mentioned 
in a letter fr6m J. M. Kemble in November, 1833, as one of the poems 
humorously commented on by the Cambridge Apostles {Mem. I. 130). 

1. Altho' I he. Throughout the poem St. Simeon thus calls him- 
self the greatest of sinners. Cf. Burns's Holy Willie's Prayer. 

10. Thrice ten years. The self-imposed penances of St. Simeon 
are taken by Tennyson from the original stories. 

13. Note in this line and in line 16 the numerous strong accents, 
making the lines heavy and diflicult. 

79. Miracles. All the memoirs recount the miracles wrought 
by St. Simeon. 

86. Cubits. A cubit varies in length in different countries. It 
is about seventeen or eighteen inches. Hence the final pillar was 
about sixty feet high. In the original story it was thirty-six cubits, 
or fifty-four feet. 

123-157. Remarkable lines in the dramatic expression of the con- 
flict between St. Simeon's conventional conception of himself as a 
sinner and his actual conception of himself as a saint. Note how 
his speech to the people (11. 131-57) expands in transition from 
"you do ill to kneel to me" to his triumphant acceptance of the cry, 
"Behold a saint." Study the steps of the mental argument from 
"Yes, I can heal," to "Yea, crown'd a saint." 



NOTES 337 

158-162. /, Simeon. What is the effect of the repetition of "I" 
through these lines? 

164-166. The reference is to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ, 
and to Pontius Pilate, who believed in the innocence of Christ, but 
who delivered him over to be crucified. Is this extreme statement of 
his sinfulness natural after the preceding paragraph? 

166. On the coals, etc. "These details seem taken from the well- 
known stories about Luther and Bunyan. All that the Acta say 
about St. Simeon is that he was pestered by devils." (Collins: The 
Early Poems of Tennyson, p. 179.) 

169. Abaddon. In the account of the opening of the bottomless 
pit, the "locusts" (for description, see Revelation ix.) were empow- 
ered to hurt "men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads" 
for a period of five months. The king over these locusts was the 
angel of the bottomless pit, Abaddon in the Hebrew tongue but 
ApoUyon in the Greek tongue. 

169. Asmodeus. In later Jewish demonology a destructive 
demon. There is an account of him in the Book of Tobit. Once in 
resisting the summons of the Almighty he broke his leg, and hence is 
called the ''diable boiteux^' or the lame devil. He is the hero of Le 
Sage's romance, Le Diable Boiteux, and reappears in Foote's adapta- 
tion of that play, The Devil on Two Sticks, as a witty, mischief- 
making character. Byron describes him in The Vision of Judgment 
as having sprained his left wing with carrying the poet Southey up 
for judgment. St. Simeon has, however, no touch of this later rather 
light and humorous conception of Asmodeus. 

195-210. Compare these closing lines of vision with Sir Galahad, 
the last stanza. 

ULYSSES 

One of the poems of the 1842 volume, but written soon after Arthur 
Hallam's death in 1833. Tennyson said the poem gave his feelings 
*' about the need of going forward, and braving the struggle of life, 
perhaps more simply than anything in In Memoriam" (Mem. I. 196). 
It was through the reading of this poem in 1845 that Sir Robert Peel 
determined to give Tennyson a pension. When Carlyle read the poem 
he said of lines 62-4, "These lines do not make me weep, but there is in 
me what would fill whole lachrymatories as I read." (Mem. I. 214.) 

In Illustrations of Tennyson (p. 58) Mr. Collins says: "We now 
come to Ulysses. The germ, the spirit, and the sentiment of this 
poem are from the twenty-sixth canto of Dante's Inferno. Tennyson 
has indeed done little but fill in the sketch of the great Florentine. 
As is usual with him in all cases where he borrows, the details and 
minuter portions of the work are his own; he has added grace, elab- 
oration, and symmetry; he has called iu the assistance of other poets. 
A rough crayon draught has been metamorphosed into a perfect 



338 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

picture. As the resemblances lie not so much in expression as in 
the general tone, we will in this case substitute for the original a 
literal version. Ulysses is speaking: — 

" 'Neither fondness for my son, nor reverence for my aged sire, nor 
the due love which ought to have gladdened Penelope, could conquer 
me in the ardor which I had to become experienced in the world, 
and in human vice and worth. I put out into the deep open sea with 
but one ship, and with that small company which had not deserted 
me. ... I and my companions were old and tardy when we came 
to that narrow pass where Hercules assigned his landmarks. **0 
brothers," I said, "who through a hundred thousand dangers have 
reached the West, deny not to this the brief vigil of your senses that 
remain, experience of the unpeopled world beyond the sun. Con- 
sider your origin ; ye were not formed to live like brutes, but to follow 
virtue and knowledge." . . . Night already saw the other pole with 
all its stars, and ours so low that it rose not from the ocean floor.' 
(Inferno, xxvi. 94-126.)" 

2. By this still hearth. Unlike Dante, Tennyson put the scene in 
Ithaca. 

3. An aged wife. Penelope. 

10. The rainy Hyades. A group of nymphs who nursed the infant 
Zeus and as a reward were transferred to the heavens as a part of the 
constellation Taurus. Their rising with the sun was associated with 
the beginning of the rainy season. Virgil uses the phrase ''pluviasque 
Hyadas" (Aeneid, i. 744). 

27. That eternal silence. A pagan conception of death. 

S3. Telemachus. The son of Ulysses. See Stephen Phillips, 
Ulysses, a Drama, for an interesting presentation of the return of 
Ulysses to Ithaca. 

45. There gloom, etc. ''Mr.HeTbert Feiul (The' Nineteenth Century, 
March, 1893) points out that the Homeric mariner never set sail at 
twilight if he could help it. But Tennyson chose the evening because 
it harmonized with the closing venture of Ulysses's life." (Van 
Dyke: Poems by Tennyson, p. 392.) 

58. Smite the sounding furrows. Cf. Odyssey, iv. 580 and ix. 104. 

63. The Happy Isles. The Fortunate Islands were originally 
imaginary islands in the v/estern ocean, where the souls of the good are 
made happy. With the discovery of the Canary and Madeira Islands 
the name became attached to them. 

64. The great Achilles. "For us Achilles has yet another interest. 
He, more than any character of fiction, reflects the qualities of the 
Greek race in its heroic age. His vices of passion and ungovernable 
pride, his virtue of splendid human heroism, his free individuality 
asserted in the scorn of fate, are representative of that Hellas which 
afterwards, at Marathon and Salamis, Was destined to inaugurate a 
new era of spiritual freedom for mankind. ... It is very difficult. 



NOTES 339 

by any process of criticism, to define the impression of greatness and 
of glory which the character of Achilles leaves upon the mind. There 
is in him a kind of magnetic fascination, something incommensurable 
and indescribable, a quality, like that which Goethe defined as dae- 
monic." (Symonds: The Greek Poets, Vol. I., pp. Ill, 122.) 



SIR GALAHAD 

Mentioned by Spedding in 1834 {Mem. I. 139). First published 
in 1842. For a full account of Galahad see The Holy Grail. The 
Grail is a cup or chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper. In this 
cup Joseph of Arimathea caught the last drops of Christ's blood as he 
was taken from the cross. There is a legend that it was kept on the 
top of a mountain and vanished when approached by any one not 
perfectly pure. The finding of the Grail was the ideal or aim of 
many knights, but no one could succeed who was not perfectly pure. 
Sir Galahad was the only one of the knights who saw the vision face 
to face. 

Sir Galahad is a valiant and successful warrior, doing all knightly 
deeds against the heathen and in behalf of those needing succor. 
But he is above all a mystic. His devotion to an ideal is absolute. 
His spiritual longings are so intense that he loses consciousness not 
only of his surroundings, but of his bodily existence as well. With 
lines 70-2 compare lines 229-39 of The Ancient Sage. For an 
interesting account of Tennyson's personal trance experiences see 
Mem. I. 320. II. 473. 

THE EAGLE 

A fragment first printed in 1851 in the seventh edition of Ten- 
nyson's poems. Of this poem Mr. Stopford Brooke writes {Tennyson, 
His Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 411) : 

**I used to think that the phrase 'wrinkled sea,' in the fragment 
called The Eagle, was too bold. But one day I stood on the edge of 
the cliff below Slieve League in Donegal. The cliff from which 
I looked down upon the Atlantic was nine hundred feet in height. 
... As I gazed down upon the sea below . . . the varying puffs 
that eddied in and out among the hollows and juttings of the cliffs 
covered the quiet surface with an infinite network of involved ripples. 
It was exactly Tennyson's wrinkled sea. Then, by huge good fortune, 
an eagle . . . flew out of his eyrie, and poised, barking, on his wings; 
but in a moment fell precipitate, as their manner is, straight down 
... to the sea. And I could not help crying out : 

" 'The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
He watches from his mountain walls, 
And like a thunder-bolt he falls.' " 



340 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

♦'BREAK, BREAK, BREAK" 

"Made in a Lincolnshire lane at 5 o'clock in the morning, between 
blossoming hedges." {Mem. I. 190.) It was one of the new poems 
in the volume of 1842. It is a lament for Arthur Hallam, and takes 
its place in spirit along with the earlier In Memoriam songs. 

3. And I would. Cf. In Memoriam, V. 

9. And the stately ships. Cf. the contrast between the continued 
life and activity of others and his own desolation, with the same idea 
in In Memoriam, VII: 

**He is not here; but far away 

The noise of life begins again." 

11. A vanished hand. Cf. In Memoriam, XIII. 

*'And, where warm hands have prest and closed. 
Silence, till I be silent too." 

The burial of Arthur Hallam took place in January, 1834. On 
the evening of one of the sad winter days that followed, Tennyson 
wrote in his scrap-book some fragmentary lines which proved to be 
the germ of In Memoriam. They began thus : 

** Where is the voice I loved? Ah, where 
Is that dear hand that I would press?" (Mem. I. 107.) 

15. Biit the tender grace. See Intro., p. 49. 

THE BROOK 

These stanzas are from a narrative poem, The Brook. In the com- 
plete poem Lawrence Aylmer is represented as returning to his old 
home after a long absence. As he walks along by the brook that 
joins the river near Philip's farm, he remembers not only the garru- 
lous old farmer and his pretty daughter Katie, but he thinks as well 
of his own dead brother, the young poet, who wrote the song of the 
brook. The brook itself, which, in the young poet's rhyme, sings its 
own song, is not, Tennyson teUs us, any particular brook, but a 
brook of the imagination. This poem was published in the Maud vol- 
ume of 1855. 

I. Coot, and hern. The coot and the heron are common English 
birds that live on the banks of streams and lakes. 

4. Bicker. Originally the word meant '*to fight," but a secondary 
meaning is **to move quickly, to quiver, to be tremulous, like flame 
or water." This is evidently the meaning here, with an additional 
implied impressionof **flash"or **shine"in alliance with the "sparkle" 
of the preceding line. 

7. Thorps. Small villages or hamlets. Cf. The Holy Grail, 11. 

547-9: 

**Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, 
And almost plaster'd like a martin's nest 
To these old walls." 



NOTES 341 

II. For men may come, etc. Note the use of these lines four 
times as a refrain. 

20. Willow-weed. The Great Willow-herb (Epilobium hirsutum). 

20. Mallow. A plant the fruit of which is a depressed disk popu- 
larly called a "cheese." 

28. Grayling. A fish allied to the trout, but with a smaller 
mouth and larger scales. 

31. Waterbreak. A ripple. 

38. Covers. A hunting term for woods or thickets that conceal 
the game. Here refers less specifically to hazel thickets. 

47. Shingly bars. Banks of loose, coarse gravel. 

SONGS FROM THE PRINCESS 

The Princess, Tennyson's first long poem, appeared in 1847. It 
was afterwards subjected to much revision. The songs between the 
parts were added in the third -edition, 1850. Of these songs Tennyson 
said: "The child is the link thro' the parts, as is shown in the songs, 
which are the best interpreters of the poem. Before the first edition 
came out I deliberated with myself whether I should put songs 
between the separate divisions of the poem; again I thought that the 
poem would explain itself, but the public did not see the drift." 
{Mem. I. 254.) The "drift" of the poem was that normal human 
affections were too strong to be suppressed by even the most attractive 
of colleges formed on the basis of the Princess Ida's college. The 
sum of it all is in the line about the Princess: 

"A greater than all knowledge beat her down." 
The songs lay emphasis on the child as the real heroine of the poem. 
As given in The Princess these songs have no titles. 

THE CHILD'S GRAVE 
In some editions lines 6-9 were omitted. Do you think they should 
have been permanently omitted? The power of the memory of the 
child to reunite sundered hearts is in delicate contrast to Ida's at- 
tempt — even against her own instinct — to belittle the importance of 
children. (III. 234-44.) (Wallace: The Princess, pp. xlix-lii.) 

THE CRADLE SONG 
Tennyson made two versions of this song and sent them to Miss 
Sell wood (afterwards his wife), asking which should be published. 
She chose the "Sweet and low" as more song-like. (Mem. I. 255.) 

THE BUGLE SONG 
In Mr. de Vere's account of Tennyson's visit to Ireland in 1848 
he says: "The echoes of the bugle at Killarney on that loveliest of 
lakes inspired the song introduced into the second edition of his 



342 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

•Princess/ ... It is marvelous that so many of the chief characteris- 
tics of Killarney should have found place in a poem so short." {Mem, 
I. 292.) So far as the song is definitely related to the poem it is 
through lines 13-16, which express the immortality of the influence of 
love. 

10. The horns of Elfland. The echoes suggest a fairy origin. Cf. 
the description of the echoes in Coleridge's Christabel, Part II. 

••TEARS, IDLE TEARS" 

Mr. Knowles in The Nineteenth Century, January, 1893, writes 
of Tennyson: '•All such subjects (idealism, the state of trance, 
etc.) moved him profoundly, and to an immense curiosity and in- 
terest about them. He told me that 'Tears, Idle Tears' was written 
as an expression of such longings. It is in a way like St. Paul's 
•groanings which cannot be uttered.' It was written at Tintern when 
the woods were all yellowing with autumn, seen through the ruined 
windows. It is what I have always felt even from a boy, and what 
as a boy I called 'the passion of the past.* And it is so always with 
me now; it is the distance that charms me in the landscape, the 
picture, and the past, and not the immediate to-day in which I 
move." It is to be noted that this song is unrhymed, "a blank 
verse lyric." Cf. Mem. I. 253, II. 73. 

••A SMALL SWEET IDYLL" 

This is the song the Princess Ida read aloud as she watched at 
night by the wounded Prince. It is spoken of in the poem as "a 
small sweet Idyl." Tennyson was accustomed to spell the word with 
but one "1" when he spoke of his shorter idyllic poems. In substance 
it is a call to the *Princess to forsake the isolation of such a life as she 
had planned and to ally herself with ordinary human needs and 
loves. It was •'written in Switzerland (chiefly at Lauterbrunnen 
and Grindelwald), and descriptive of the waste Alpine heights and 
gorges, and of the sweet, rich valleys below." For simple rhythm 
and vowel music Tennyson ranked this poem as •'amongst his most 
successful work." {Mem. 1. 252.) This poem also is a blank verse 
lyric. 

5. To glide a sunbeam, etc. The sunbeam shining on the blasted 
pine, and the star seen close to a glittering peak of ice, seem signally 
out of place. (Cf. Wallace: The Princess, p. 210.) 

7. Love is of the valley. Cf. the isolation attempted in The Palace 
of Art, and the final coming down for real happiness to the cottage 
in the vale. 

10. Hand in hand, etc. •'A rich romantic version of the old proverb 
found in the Roman poet Terence — 'Without Ceres and Bacchus 
Venus freezes.' The original intention and application of the phrase 



NOTES 343 

were, of course, gross in character, but it is equally true in this 
spiritualized form." (Wallace: The Princess, p. 210.) 

12. Foxlike in the vine. Cf. Song of Solomon ii. 15, "Take us the 
foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines." 

13. Silver horns. The peaks of the mountains. Lines 13-23 
are descriptive of the "waste Alpine heights" where love refuses to 
dwell. 

15. Firths of ice. Glaciers. 

16. Huddling slant, etc. ** 'Huddling' refers to their confused, 
ridgy structure, due to the continuous pressure from above and the 
irregular course which they pursue between the broken and jagged 
sides of the ravine. The 'furrows' are the crevasses which, owing to 
the splitting of the ice, run obliquely across the surface of the glacier. 
The outlet at the bottom is called 'dusky' in contrast to the snows 
all about." (Wallace: The Princess, p. 211.) 

23. Like a broken purpose. A moral fact used as a similitude for 
a fact in nature. 

25. Azure pillars. Straight columns of smoke going up in clear 
weather. 

29. Myriads, etc. Note the description of rippling water by the 
striking accumulation of additional short syllables, while liquid 
labials and soft "o" and *'u" sounds represent the cooing of doves 
and the humming of bees. (Cf. Wallace: The Princess, p. 212.) 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 

This Ode was written after September 14, the date of the Duke's 
death, and published November 18, 1852, on the day of the funeral. 
The poem, with final revisions, appeared in the Maud volume in 1855. 
This poem was one Tennyson enjoyed reading aloud because he 
could bring out its rich and varied music. Mr. Van Dyke heard him 
read it in 1892, and says: 

**In the first two strophes the movement begins with a solemn 
prelude and the confused sound of a mighty throng assembling. 
The third strophe is the Dead March, with its long, slow, monotonous, 
throbbing time, expressed by a single rhyme recurring at the end of 
each line. The fourth strophe is an interlude; the poet, watching the 
procession, remembers the great Duke as he used to walk through 
the London streets, and recalls the simplicity and strength of his 
appearance and character. In the fifth strophe the music is controlled 
by the repeated tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's cathedral, and 
then by the volleying guns, as the body is carried into the church. 
The strophe closes with a broad, open movement which prepares the 
way, like an 'avenue of song,' for the anthem of strophes vi., vii., 
and viii. It begins with a solo of three lines, in a different measure, 
representing Nelson waking in his tomb and asking who it is that 
comes to rest beside him. The answer follows with the full music 



344 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

of organ and choir, celebrating first the glory of Wellington's achieve- 
ments as warrior, the value of his counsel and conduct as statesman^ 
and then the unselfish integrity of his character as a man, closing 
with a burst of harmony in which the repetition of the word 'honour^ 
produces the effect of a splendid fugue. A great silence follows, and 
the ninth strophe begins with a single quiet voice (Tennyson said, 
*Here I thought I heard a sweet voice, like the voice of a woman') 
singing of peace and love and immortality. The movement is at 
first tender and sorrowful, then aspiring and hopeful, then solemn 
and sad as the dust falls on the coffin, and at last calm and trustful 
in the victory of faith.'' (Poems by Tennyson, p. 439.) 

In theme and spirit the descriptions here given of the Duke of 
Wellington and of Admiral Lord Nelson are entirely in harmony with 
Wordsworth's The Character of a Happy Warrior, which was, in 
part, meant as a tribute to Nelson. 

30. Great in counsel. His papers are said by Sir Robert Peel to 
be "marked by comprehensiveness of views, simplicity and clearness 
of expression, and profound sagacity." 

37. To true occasion true. "His chief characteristics were manli- 
ness and public spirit. The former showed itself in his simplicity, 
straightforwardness, self-reliance, imperturbable nerve, and strength 
of will." (Dictionary of National Biography.) 

39. Four-square. This expression denotes the "best conformation 
for sturdy resistance." 

42. World-victor^ s victor. Wellington conquered Napoleon. 

49. Under the cross of gold. In St. Paul's Cathedral there is, on 
the top of the dome, a lantern surmounted by a ball, on the top of 
which is a great cross, the ball and the cross together weighing 8,960 
pounds. Beneath the central arch of the aisle of the cathedral is 
the monument to the Duke of Wellington. The bronze figure of 
Wellington rests on a lofty sarcophagus overshadowed by a rich 
marble canopy, with twelve Corinthian columns. Above arfe colossa 1 
groups of Valour and Cowardice, Truth and Falsehood. 

55. The towering car, etc. The Duke of Wellington was buried 
with "unexampled magnificence." The funeral procession which 
passed by Constitution Hill, Piccadilly, and the Strand, to St. Paul's, 
was gazed at by a concourse of one and one-half million people. 

64. Many a clime. Referring to the many victories of the Duke 
of Wellington in India, Portugal, Spain, and France. 

83. Mighty seaman. Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was buried 
in St. Paul's Cathedral in 1805. Lines 80-2 are supposed to be ut- 
tered by him. Wellesley and Nelson met once by chance in the colo- 
nial office in September, 1804, just after Wellesley's return from India, 
and just before Nelson left England for the last time. 

97. Nor ever lost an English gun. "Diiring that period that can 
be said of him which can be said of no other captain — that he cap- 



NOTES 345 

tured 3,000 cannon from the enemy, and never lost a single gun." 
[Quoted by Van Dyke from Disraeli's speech moving a vote of thanks 
to the Queen for the public funeral to the Duke.] 

99. Assaye, A village of British India, where Wellesley, Septem- 
ber 23, 1803, defeated more than 50,000 Mahrattas with a loss of 
only about 1,800 British soldiers. Wellesley was in India eight 
years. 

103. Round affrighted Lisbon. From October, 1810, to March, 1811, 
the English and Portuguese, under Wellington, defended the lines 
of Torres Vedras against the French. These lines of fortification ex- 
tended from near the little town of Torres Vedras to the river Tagus, 
and so nearly surrounded Lisbon. 

110. Back to France. In 1813 Wellington drove the French out 
of the Peninsula and invaded France. 

121. Barking. Tennyson was not the first to speak of the bark- 
ing of the eagle. Cf. Wordsworth, On the Power of Sound : 

*'Thou too be heard, lone eagle! freed 
From snowy peak and cloud, attune 
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn 
Of joy." 

122. Duty's iron crown. A reference to the Iron Crown of Lom- 
bardy, so called from a narrow band of iron within it, said to be 
beaten out of one of the nails used at the Crucifixion. . . . The 
crown is preserved with great care at Monza, near Milan, and Napo- 
leon, like his predecessor Charlemagne, was crowned with it. (See 
Brewer: Diet, of Phrase and Fable.) 

123. On that loud Sabbath. The battle of Waterloo was fought 
on Sunday, June 18, 1815. 

129. A sudden jubilant ray. *'The Duke gave the long-wished- 
for command for a general advance of the army along the whole line 
upon the foe. ... As they joyously sprang forward against the dis- 
comfited masses of the French, the setting sun broke through the 
clouds which had obscured the sky during the greater part of the day, 
and glittered on the bayonets of the allies while they in turn poured 
down into the valley and toward the heights that were held by the " 
foe." (Creasy: Fifteen Decisive Battles, p. 363.) 

137. The Baltic and the Nile. In 1801 Admiral Nelson went 
against Napoleon and his northern allies, and on April 2d, sailed into 
the harbor of Copenhagen and crushed the naval power of Denmark 
in four hours. Three years before (August 2, 1798), Nelson had totally 
destroyed the vast fleet of Napoleon, which was at anchor in Aboukir 
Bay, at the mouth of the Nile. 

164. That sober freedom. Cf. "0/ old sat Freedom on the heights," 
11. 18, 24, and notes. Cf. ''You ask me, why, t?io' ill at ease," stanza 
2, for a description of England, 

**It is the land that freemen till, 
That sober-suited Freedom chose." 



346 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

188. Truth-teller was our England's Alfred. In the Annals of 
St. Neot King Alfred was called Aelfredus Viridicus. 

196. All her stars. In the course of his history Wellington was 
decorated with many Orders of the highest rank, and not by England 
alone but by foreign countries. He was steadily advanced in rank, 
being, in succession, baronet, viscount, earl, marquis, and duke. Par- 
liament also repeatedly gave him very large grants of money or land. 

215. Crags of Duty scaled. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode to Duty^ 
stanza 6, in which there is a similar conception of duty. In the begin- 
ning Wordsworth addresses Duty as the "Stern Daughter of the Voio 
of God," and again as "Stern Law-giver," but finally he says, 

"Yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face." 

THE NORTHERN FARMER 

OLD STYLE 

For the origin of this poem see Intro., p. 37. It was written in 
February, 1861 {Mem. I. 471), but not published till the Enoch Arden 
volume, 1864. For Browning's view of the poem see Intro. ^ p. 36. 
This is one of the poems Tennyson cared most to read aloud, and he 
is said to have brought out the humor in a remarkable manner. 
The difficulty in the way of understanding the language is less than 
at first the unfamiliar look of the page would indicate, and the strength 
and humor of the sketch more than repay any labor in conquering 
the phraseology. The dialect is Lincolnshire. The following expla- 
nations of the more difficult words are, for the most part, taken from 
Wright's English Dialect Dictionary or Murray's New English Dic- 
tionary. 

1 . Where hast thou been so long and me lying here alone? 

2. Thourt nowt. Thou art of no use. Abean an' agodn. Been 
and gone. 

3. Modnt 'a. May not have. 

5. A says. He says. Cf. a do, he does, 1. 6; a towd, he told, 1. 11. 
7. I\ve ^ed, etc. I've had my pint of ale every night since I've 
been here. 

10. A tadkin, etc. Taking you to himself. 

11. Notice the old farmer's way of compounding for his sins. 
Cf. stanzas iv. to vi. Ma is "me"; an's toithe means "and his tithe." 

12. As I 'a done hoy. As I have done by. 

13. Larn'd a ma' bed. Learned he may be. Notice hereafter 
that "a" is either "he" or is used with a participle as "a bummin' " 
or stands for "have," (in which case it is written " 'a"), or it is, as in 
present usage, the indefinite article. 

14. Cast oop. Cast up against me. Barne. Child. 



NOTES 347 

!6. Woost. Worst. Radte. The poor tax. 

17. And I always went to his church. He went to church, paid 
the poor tax and his tithes, and voted as the squire told him to. Nor 
in the face of such virtues could he comprehend the parson's attitude in 
harping on a dying man's sins. Trench wrote of this poem to the 
Bishop of Oxford, "Every clergyman ought to study it. It is a 
wonderful revelation of the heathenism still in the land.'* (Waugh: 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p. 195.) 

18. 'Um. Him, i.e., the parson. A buzzard-clock. A cockchafer, 
any buzzing insect, the May bug. 

23. \Siver. Howsoever. / kep 'um. I supported him. Tha 
mun. Thou must. 

27. Summun. Some one. Cf. Psalm cxvi. 11, "I said in my 
haste. All men are liars.'* This vague memory of Bible words had 
stayed in his mind. 

28. 'E. He, i.e., the parson. What, the old farmer thinks, is 
one sermon a week compared to an important piece of work like 
getting Thurnaby waste into good state for cultivation? 

30. Boggle. Written "bogy," "bogey," "bogle," "boggle," and 
means a ghost, a hobgoblin. Tam O'Shanter was afraid lest "bogles" 
should catch him unawares. 

31. A butter-bump. Sometimes called "a butter-bittern." A 
colloquial name for the bittern. Wright quotes, "We heer'd the 
butter-bump boomin', an' the croans croak-croakin'. " The bittern 
is a solitary bird, frequenting marshes and having a loud, hollow 
note. Kirke White describes a savage as shrinking from "the dis- 
maying solitude" when he hears "the bittern booming in the reeds." 
So it was quite natural that the call of the butter-bump should bo 
thought that of a boggle. 

32. Radved an' rembled 'um. Radved is from the verb "rive," to 
plough ground never before ploughed; or to tear up; rembled is to 
throw out. When he put the ground in good condition he got rid 
of the boggle too. 

33. Reaper's it wur. It was thought to be the ghost of the game- 
keeper because he had been found dead, lying on his face among 
the wild anemones growing on the waste. 

35. Todner. Either Noaks or Thimbleby had shot the keeper, 
and Noaks had been hanged for it at the assizes. 

37. Dubbut. Do but. 

38. Bracken an' fuzz. Bracken is a name for the larger kinds of 
fern; fuzz is "furze," a low shrub with yellow flowers, and common 
in barren, heathy districts of England and Scotland. 

40. Yows. Ewes. Downi' seeiid. Sowed to clover. 

42. Ta-year. This year. Thruff. Through. 

43. Nobbut. Only. 

44. Hadte. Eight. 



34:8 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

46. W 07171 as saws. Such a one as sows. The old farmer does 
not do haphazard, careless work. 

47. A\ Equivalent to "Oh." 

48. Michaelmas. A church festival celebrated September 29. 

49. As 'ant, etc. Who hasn't a ha'penny worth of sense. 

52. Cauve. Calve. HoalTUs. Holms. 

53. Quoloty. The gentry. Ma. Me. 

54. SewerloT). Surely. 
58. Howd. Hold. 

6 i . Kittle o' steam. The steam threshing machine was introduced 
into Lincolnshire in 1848. (Van Dyke: Poems by Tennyson, p. 400.) 

62. Huzzin'. Making a buzzing or humming noise. Madzin\ 
Astonishing and frightening. 

64. It. I.e., the presence of the threshing machine in the fields 
he had tilled. 

66. 'Todttler. A teetotaler. 

66. An a's hallus, etc. And he's always telling the old tale. 

67. Floy. Fly. 

NORTHERN FARMER 

NEW STYLE 

This poem was published in The Holy Grail volume of 1869. For 
the origin of it see Intro., p. 37. The locality is the same as in the 
preceding poem, but the time is later. The independent property- 
holder has succeeded the farm-bailiff. 

I. 'Erse. Horse. Cf. 1. 41, where we have "esh" for "ash." 
"Ass" was also often called "ess." 

5. Craw to pluck. Proverbial expression for "to have something 
disagreeable or awkward to settle or clear up." Ramsay and Burns 
both use "craw" for "crow." 

8. Wod then wod. The farmer and his son are on horseback and 
the old man's horse is apparently restive. Notice how frequently 
the monologue is broken in upon by remarks to the horse. 

14. Scoors o' gells. Scores of gurls. 

15. The flower as blaws. This farmer, like the preceding one, 
has some faint memory of biblical phrases. "As a flower of the 
field, so" he flourisheth." Psalm ciii. 15. 

17. Stunt. Obstinate, angry, sulky. 

24. As 'ant nowt. As means that, which, or who; 'ant is equiva- 
lent to "hant" for "has not"; nowt, nothing. The farmer uses the 
double negative; wednt 'a nowt, will not have anything. 

26. Addle her bread. Earn her own living. Cf. "It isn't what a 
chap addles, it's what a chap saves 'at makes him rich." (Wright.) 

27. Git hiss^n clear. Get himself clear of debt. 

28. The bed as 'e ligs on. A proverbial expression meaning that 
one must accept the natural outcome of his actions. Ligs, lies. 



NOTES 349 

Lincolnshire for a coverlid is "a ligger." Sherc. Shire (nearly 
equivalent to modern **county'')- 

30. Shut on. Get rid of. Cf. "get shut of," as slang phrase 
in England and United States. 

31. /' the grip. The *'grip" is a small trench for draining a field. 

32. A far-welter'd yowe. Said of a sheep that is overthrown, 
cast on its back. "The sheep are often found on their backs, and if 
not relieved soon die; this is called far^-weltard or lifting, and they 
have dogs that will turn them." (Wright.) 

38. Burn, Born. 

39. Mays nowt. Makes nothing. 

40. The bees. Lincolnshire for flies, and not necessarily large 
flies. Cf. "I've gotten a bee in my eye." (Wright.) Fell, Keen, 
fierce. As owt. As anything. 

51. Ammost. Almost. 

52. Tued. Bustled about. MoiVd. Toiled. 

53. Beck. Brook. 

54. Feyther run oop. His property extended up. 

55. Brig. Bridge. 

IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ 
During the summer of 1830 Tennyson and Arthur Hallam made a 
tour through the Pyrenees. (Mem. I. 51.) In the summer of 
1861 Tennyson revisited some of the places he had first seen with 
his friend. "On August 6th, my father's birthday, we arrived at 
Cauteretz — his favorite valley in the Pyrenees. Before our windows 
we had the torrent rushing over its rocky bed from far away among 
the mountains and falling in cataracts ... He wrote his lyric, 'AH 
Along the Valley,' 'after hearing the voice of the torrent seemingly 
sound deeper as the night grew.' " The poem was in memory of 
Arthur Hallam. See Intro., p. 49. 

4. Two and thirty. "My father was vexed that he had written 
'two and thirty years ago,' instead of 'one and thirty years ago,' and 
as late as 1892 wished to alter it, as he hated inaccuracy." (Mem. 
I. 475.) 

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM 
Mrs. Tennyson writes in her Journal for December, 1867, "A. is read- 
ing Hebrew; he talked much . . . about all-pervading spirit being 
more understandable by him than solid matter. He brought down to 
me his psalm-like poem, 'Higher Pantheism.' " (Mem. II. 48.) "This 
poem was sent by Tennyson to the Metaphysical Society [June 2, 
1869] ... as undoubtedly expressive of his personal views. It 
deals with . . . the ultimate nature of reality, and the relation of the 
finite to the infinite. With reference to these problems we find him 
to be an Idealist. He declares all reality, in the final analysis, to be 
mentality. That is, there is only one kind of being and that is mind 



350 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

[Cf. 11. 1-8]. . . . The reality of corporeal or material objects is annihaa- 
ted, and minds only are affirmed to exist — the Infinite Mind and finite 
minds. . . . God is, and He is personal. Man is, and he is personal. 
God and Man as personal being constitute the only reality, and 
between them exists a close relationship." [Cf. 11. 11-12.] (Sneath: 
The Mind of Tennyson, p. 64.) Hallam Tennyson writes of his 
father: "He said again to us with deep feeling, in January, 1869: 
*Yes, it is true that there are moments when the flesh is nothing 
to me, when I feel and know the flesh to be the vision, God and the 
Spiritual the only real and true. Depend upon it, the Spiritual 
is the real; it belongs to one more than the hand and the 
foot. You may tell me that my hand and my foot are only imaginary 
symbols of my existence, I could believe you; but you never, never 
can convince me that the I is not an eternal Reality, and that the 
Spiritual is not the true and real part of me.'" {Mem. II. 90.) 
Tennyson's teaching in this poem "is not pantheism in the common 
sense of the word. It is a higher truth; for while it teaches that 
God is in the Visible All, it denies that the Visible All expresses the 
whole of God. The manifestation of God in the world is dark, broken, 
distorted, because we ourselves are imperfect." (Van Dyke: Poems 
by Tennyson, p. 449.) 

4. Dreams, etc. In The Ancient Sage Tennyson speaks of this 
world as "a shadow-world" (1. 239). Our life here is the delusion, the 
dream. The real life comes with the "dawn of more than mortal 
day" (1. 284). But dreams are true while they last. 

5. This weight of body and limb. Cf. In Memorixim, XL V., where 
one purpose of life is represented to be "the development of self- 
conscious personality." (Genung: Tennyson's In Memoriam,p. 133.) 

11-12. Speak to him, etc. "Cf. Psalm Ixv. 2; Romans viii. 16; 
Acts xvii. 27. This is the truth of prayer." (Van Dyke: Poems by 
Tennyson, p. 450.) 

"FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL" 
Written at Wegner's Wells on Hindhead, a spot Tennyson particu- 
larly liked. (Mem. II. 209.) The philosophical idea underlying the 
poem is the unity of all nature. "Cf. William Blake's lines (Auguries 
of Innocence), 

"To see a world in a grain of sand, 
And a heaven in a wild flower ; 
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. 
And eternity in an hour," 

and Wordsworth's Primrose on the Rock, and the lines in his great 
Ode, 

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

The meter is rather rough, as Tennyson admitted (Mem. II. 94) 
but he explained line 5 as being anapaestic. 



NOTES 351 

IN MEMORIAM 

"In 1850 Mr. Tennyson gave to the world under the title of 'In 
Memoriam' perhaps the richest oblation ever offered by the affection 
of friendship at the tomb of the departed. The memory of Arthur 
Henry Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833, at the age of twenty-two, 
will doubtless hve chiefly in connection with this volume. But he 
is well Jtnown to have been one who, if the term of his days had been 
prolonged, would have needed no aid from a friendly hand, would 
have built his own enduring monument, and would have bequeathed 
to his country a name, in all likelihood, greater than that of his very 
distinguished father. . . . There perhaps was no one among those 
who were blessed with his friendship, nay, as we see, not even Mr. 
Tennyson [Cf . In Memoriam, CIX., CX., CXI., CXII., CXIII.], who did 
not feel at once bound closely to him by commanding affection, and 
left far behind by the rapid, full and rich development of his ever-search- 
ing mind. . . . But what can be a nobler tribute than this, that for 
seventeen years after his death, a poet, fast rising towards the lofty 
summits of his art, found that young, fading image the richest source 
of his inspiration, and of thoughts that gave him buoyancy for a 
flight such as he had not hitherto attained?"(Gladstone's Gleanings 
from Past Years, Vol. II., pp. 136-7. Quoted in Mem. I. 299.) This 
review of In Memoriam by Mr. Gladstone was, in Tennyson's opinion, 
one of the ablest that appeared. 

For a comparison of In Memoriam with other writings in the same 
class, especially Lycidas and Adonais, see Genung's Tennyson^s In 
Memoriam^ pp. 32-40. 

PROLOGUE 

The Prologue is dated 1849. the year before the poem was published. 
Although it stands first, it was written last, and is a kind of summary 
of the mental and emotional outcome of the whole series of poems. 

I. Immortal Love. Tennyson said that he used "Love" in this 
passage in the same sense as St. John (1 John iv). {Mem. I. 312.) 

2-4. Cf. 1 Peter i. 8. Cf. Mem. I. 311. "Nothing worthy proving 
can be proven." Cf. The Ancient Sage, 57-67. 
5-8. Cf. John i. 3. 

II. He thinks, etc. Man has an instinctive belief in immortality. 
A just God, Tennyson says, would not create him with that instinct 
if there were no future life to satisfy it. In writing to Mrs. Elrahurst 
on the loss of her son, Tennyson said: "You can not catch the voice, or 
feel the hands, or kiss the cheek, that is aU; a separation for an hour, 
not an eternal farewell. If it were not so, that which made us would 
seem too cruel a Power to be worshiped." (Mem. II. 105.) 

15-16. ''If one can not believe in the freedom of the human will, 
as of the Divine, life is hardly worth having, said Tennyson." "The 
lines that he oftenest repeated about Free-will were. 



352 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

" 'This main miracle that thou art thou, 
With power on thine own act and on the world.' " 

(Mem. I. 317.) 
28. As before. I.e., before modern scientific thought with its 
skeptical trend had separated "mind and soul." In the preceding 
stanza the "beam in darkness" is scientific knowledge which comes 
from God, and must be allowed to grow, but if those who have 
knowledge do not have reverence their knowledge makes them vain. 
They can not "bear the light." 

33. 'Forgive what was sinful in the sorrow for the dead.' 

34. Van Dyke compares Wordsworth's lines (Memorials of a 
Tour in Scotland): 

"The best of what we do and are, 
Just God, forgive!'* 

35-36. Cf. Psalm cxliii. 2, "In thy sight shall no man living be 

justified." 

I 

The first six poems are prefatory in their nature. In I. the poet 
says that before his own sorrows he believed that all bitter experiences 
could become agencies in a higher development. But when grief 
actually comes, it is most difiicult to look beyond it to find a gain to 
match the loss. So long as he loves he must grieve, and he would pre- 
fer to endure forever a passionate grief rather than to be one in 
whose heart love could fade. 

1. Him who sings. "As far as I recollect I referred to Goethe." 
said Tennyson, in a letter written in 1880. (Ck)llins: Illustrations of 
Tennyson, p. 98.) Cf. Tennyson's saying, "Goethe is consummate 
in so many different styles.'' {Mem. II. 392.) 

VII 

The poet visits the city house (No. 67 Wimpole St., London), where 
he used to find his friend waiting for him. It is a moment of utter 
desolation. The structure of the verse corresponds to this mood. 
Note the harsh sibilants of 1. 11, and the difficult alliteration and lacl^ 
of rhythm in 1. 12. 

XI 

The poet is waiting for the coming of the ship that is to bring the 
body of his friend. It is a calm autumn morning in harmony with 
the calm, the lethargy, the exhaustion of grief, in his own heart. 
Note the rare beauty of this view, with its lovely immediate foreground 
and the wide plains stretching away to the sea that bounds the view 
Except for the fall of the chestnut there is complete silence. The 
heavy dew of an autumn morning is on the furze, and on tne filmy, 
cobweb-like substances that in autumn cling to stubble or low bushes. 
The word "calm" used to begin six of the twenty lines, and its fre- 



NOTES 353 

quent repetition in the last two stanzas, is an effective device to give 
to the picture a certain monotone that is of itself quiet. Note the 
rhythmical motion in the last stanza, like the motion of the sea. 
Compare XV., where the wild unrest of the poet's heart is reproduced 
in the strain and stir of the stormy autumn evening. 

XXVII 

No. XIX. records the burial of Hallam. In succeeding songs the 
poet commemorates the happiness of their friendship and the sadness 
of the life that he must now live alone. Yet (XXVII.) he never has 
a moment of despair so black as to wish that he had never loved. 
He does not desire the happiness or peace born of a dull nature and 
a limited experience. He would take love and the intensest conse- 
quent grief rather than the "rest" begotten of a deficient power to 
feel. 

4-8. "What reasonable creature, if he could have been askt 
beforehand, would not have said, *Give me the metaphysical power; 
let me be the lord of my decisions ; leave physical quietude and dull 
pleasure to lower lives'." (Mem. I. 170). 

6. The field of time. "As having no future life." (Palgrave: 
Lyrical Poems by Tennyson, p. 264.) 

XXX 

On the first Christmas eve after Hallam's death his friends attempt 
to carry on the customary festivities, but the gladness is a vain pre- 
tense. Sadness creeps over them, and silently they weep, until their 
courage is roused by a thought of the continued life of the one who 
is gone, and of his unchanged love for them. 

19. They rest, etc. I.e., the sleep of death is sweet. 

25-28. The keen, seraphic flame of the soul, caught up from its 
weak and frail earthly body, has new power, and pierces through all 
that separates it from our spirits. 

29-32. The new hope is typified by the sunrise. 
XXXIV 

XXXI-XXXIII. discuss the story of Lazarus and rather wistfully 
describe Mary as a type of those who in simplicity of spirit can forego 
questionings and doubt and whose lives of pure blessedness are fruit- 
ful in good works. But (XXXIV.) to the poet has come a terrible 
doubt as to the reality of the future life. If life is not eternal it has 
for him neither charm nor significance. The earth and the sun and 
all of beauty that they can show are mere accidental delights such as 
might come in the work of "some wild Poet" writing without any 
aim. Death could hardly come too soon. 

LIV 

In XXXIX. spring has come and the poet makes a sad visit to the 
churchyard. In the succeeding "short swallow flights of song" are 
many phases of his hope and despair. He seeks in all ways to estab- 



354 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

lish in his own mind a sense of his friend's real existence, and of their 
nearness to each other. Yet he almost fears this nearness through 
a consciousness of his own frailty. But in LIV. is expressed the large 
hope that every life will at last, far off it may be, but at last come to 
blessedness. This hope is, however, based not on knowledge but on 
a strong desire. 

3. Pangs of nMure. Disease. Sins of will. Voluntary wrong- 
doing. 

4. Taints of blood. Heredity. 

LXXII 

This poem marks the first anniversary of Hallam's death. There 
is a wild September storm, but had the day been of the loveliest sort 
it would have ^eemed to the poet equally desolate. He longs to have 
the day come to an end. 

6. Reverse of doom. The death of Hallam, which, so far as the 
poet was concerned, robbed nature of all her charm. 

10-12. Note close observation in this description of the effect of a 
heavy rain on rose-bushes and on the daisy. 

13. Who might' st have heaved, etc. There might have been a 
calm, brilliant sunrise, or there might have been a day of sunshine and 
soft winds. 

23-25. Throughout the poem note the impression of physical 
discomfort, the chill, heavy atmosphere, the sense of disaster to man 
and nature.^ On this anniversary the poet seems to have lost all 
the resignation and hope apparently achieved in preceding songs. 

LXXVIII 

In this song the second Christmas has come. It is a calm day of 
frost and snow. On this Christmas there are no tears, no marks of 
distress. Has love, then, grown less with time? No, in the heart the 
deep sense of loss is the same, but it becomes a part of one's being, 
and no longer finds expression in tears. 

5. Yule-clog. Yule-log. 

11. Mimic pictures. Tableaux. 

12. Hoodman blind. Blindman's buff. 

XCIX 

This song marks the second anniversary of Hallam's death. Cf. 
LXXII. This morning is calm and beautiful. There is abundant 
evidence of joyous life in nature, and the poet reflects on the peo- 
ple who will waken on this balmy morning to memories of bridals, 
births, or deaths. Of the myriads who mourn he counts himself one 
in experience and sympathy. 

6-8. Places associated in the past with Hallam. 



NOTES 355 

cvi 

It is New Year's Eve. The poet listens to the church-bells, and he 
calls upon them to *ring out' not only the personal grief that saps 
the mind, but also public wrongs of whatever sort. And they are 
commanded to 'ring in' all forms of good as summed up and exemplified 
in Christ. There is an energy, an enthusiasm, and a hopefulness in 
this poem, not characteristic of any preceding it. A new era in the 
poet's experience is entered upon. 

CXXIX 

In CXXVIII. the poet has expressed the hope that, in spite of the 
recurrence of old errors, the nations are striving upward, and (CXXIX.) 
all dreams of progress are mingled with a consciousness of his friend. 
The whole poem shows the strange combination of nearness and 
remoteness in the poet's feeling towards Hallam. But the sub- 
stance of it all is in the assurance that he is "friend, past, present, 
and to be." 

cxxx 

This sense of the union of his friend's spirit with nature reads like 
pantheism, but the last stanza is inconsistent with that view. A 
re-merging of both souls into the general spirit could hardly call forth 
so rapturous an expression as the last line. 

CXXXI 

"And now, in solemn aspiration, the poet's prayer ascends to that 
Eternal Power which is over all and through all, and in us all, that we 
may be purified; and that, faithful to our appointed task, and strong 
in self-control, we may, lo the end, abide in Him, believing where we 
can not prove." (Miss Chapman: A CornDanion to In Memoriam, 
p. 71.) 

"OHl THAT 'TWERE POSSIBLE" 

In September, 1834, Spedding writes to Tennyson, "I have also the 
alterations of *Oh that 'twere possible,' improvements, I must admit, 
tho' I own I did not think that could have been." Hence the poem 
was written before that date. It was published in The Tribute in 
1837. The relation of this poem to the poem Maud of which it finally 
formed a part is thus described: "Tennyson was engaged on his 
new poem 'Maud.' Its origin and composition were, as he described 
them, singular. He had accidentally Hghted upon a poem of his 
own which begins, 'O that 'twere possible,' and which had long before 
been published in a selected volume got up by Lord Northampton for 
, the aid of a sick clergyman. It had struck him, in consequence, I 
think, of a suggestion made by Sir John Simeon, that, to render the 
poem fully intelligible, a preceding one was necessary. He wrote it; 
the second poem too required a predecessor; and thus the whole work 
was written, as it were, backwards. " (Aubrey de Vere in Mem, I..379. ) 



356 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

Maud was published in 1855. Oh! that 'twere possible was changed 
in many places to suit the story that had grown up around it. It is 
given here as it appeared in The Tribute, because, when read as a 
separate poem, the references to the rest of the poem are confus- 
ing. In Maud this poem is the fourth division of the second part, and 
it there stands as the lament of the hero for Maud, the girl whom he 
loved and by whom he was loved, but whose death had come in conse- 
quence of a duel between her brother and her lover, the brother having 
been killed in the conflict, and the lover having been compelled to 
flee from England. After a period of insanity the lover is restored 
by the memory of Maud and by new emotions of patriotism roused 
by the Crimean War. The Tribute version of the poem is simply the 
lament of a lover for the girl he had wooed as his wife and who had 
been suddenly taken from him by death. There are none of the 
tragic complications of Maud. 

13. Ah, God! that it were possible. Mr. Churton Collins {Illustra- 
tions \oi Tennyson, p. 115) calls attention to a similar passage in 
Webster's Duchess of Malfi, iv. 2: 

**0 that it were possible we might 
But hold some two days' conference with the dead ; 
From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure, 
I never shall know here." 

17. It leads me forth. Note that here, as in Mariana in the 
Moated Grange, the sorrow is portrayed through the round of the 
day — evening, night, dawn, morning, full day. 

35. That abiding phantom. He can not rid his mind of the picture 
of her with all the terrible details of death, burial, and the grave. 
He endeavors to supplant this vision by a picture of the maiden as 
he remembers her in happy days. Cf. 1. 78. 

69. 'Tis the blot upon the brain. He realizes that the unpleasant 
vision of her is but the involuntary (1. 97) outcome of a diseased 
brain. 

71. Would the happy Spirit. In In Memoriam Tennyson discusses 
this same problem of intercourse with the dead. Cf. XCII. and 
XCIII. 

90. 'Tis a phantom of the mind. The happy picture of the maiden 
is also an image formed by the mind, but it is made consciously and by 
an act of the will, and out of lovely memories. It is a good influence 
in his life, and will be till it fades in the reality of a heavenly reunion 
(11. 104-10). 

THE REVENGE 

Tennyson had the first line of this poem on his desk for years. 
March, 1873, he was in London and there met Mr. Markham, Secretary 
of the Hakluyt Society, who had collected for him some information 
about Sir Richard Grenville. Tennyson wrote to his wife that 



NOTES 357 

story was a tremendous one, outrivaling Agincourt. When he 
returned from London he read Froude's account of the famous battle 
("England's Forgotten Worthies" in Short Studies), and he then wrote 
the poem "all at once in a day or two." (Mem. II. 142.) Tennyson's 
main source was Sir Walter Raleigh's A Report of the Truth of the 
Fight about the Isles of Azores (1591). Some details were added 
from Froude. The account of the death came from Linschoten's 
Discourse of Voyages (1596-8). The Revenge was published in 
The Nineteenth Century, March, 1878, and was included in The Bal- 
lads of 1880. 

Tennyson read this poem to Carlyle, who exclaimed: "Eh! Alfred, 
you have got the grip of it," and Tennyson's response was, "There's 
a man for you. The Spaniards declared he would 'carouse' three or 
four glasses of wine and take the glasses between his teeth and crush 
them to pieces and swallow them down." (Mem. II. 234.) 

Sir Richard Grenville was a British naval hero, a cousin of Sir 
Walter Raleigh. In 1585 he was commander of a fleet that went out 
to colonize Virginia. In 1591 Lord Thomas Howard conducted a small 
fleet of ships to intercept the Spanish treasure-ships returning from 
the West Indies. Grenville was Vice-Admiral and in command of 
"The Revenge." OfE Azores the Spaniards with a fleet of fifty-three 
ships came suddenly upon the English. Sir Thomas Howard escaped 
with five of the six queen's ships, but Grenville was delayed by his 
determination to bring his sick on board. He finally attempted to 
escape by passing through the Spanish fleet, but his ship was becalmed, 
and he was attacked by about fifteen of the largest vessels. Then 
followed the famous battle. It lasted fifteen hours, and Grenville 
surrendered only when all but twenty of his men were killed. He 
was wounded in the battle, and died a few days later. 

1. Flores. The westernmost of the Azores Islands. In this 
poem the names are pronounced Flores and Azores. 

2. And a pinnace, A warning was sent to Howard by the Earl 
of Cumberland, who was coasting along Portugal. 

17. Bideford. Three syllables. In line 30 "Seville" has the 
accent on the first syllable. 

40. Mountain-like San Philip. "The great San Philip being in 
the winde of him, and comming towards him, becalmed his sailes in 
such sort, as the shippe could neither way nor feele the helme; so 
huge and high carged was the Spanish ship, being of a thousand and 
fine hundreth tuns." (Raleigh.) 

71-73. Froude describes the ship as settling slowly in the sea, 
"the vast fleet of the Spaniards lying round her, like dogs around a 
dying lion, and wary of approaching him in his last agony." 

76-90. Nearly every detail in these lines is from Raleigh. 

101-103. "His exact words were: 'Here die I Richard Greenfield, 
with a joyous and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true 



358 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

soldier ought to do, that have fought for his country, Queen, religion, 
and honour. Whereby my soul most joyful departeth out of this 
body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a 
valiant and true soldier that has done his duty as he was bound to do.' 
When he had finished these or such other like words, he gave up the 
Ghost with a great and stout courage, and no man could perceive 
any true sign of heaviness in him.'' This is Linschoten's account. 
(Mem. II. 252.) 

THE ANCIENT SAGE 

This poem was written, Tennyson says, after reading the life and 
maxims of the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tsze, but does not embody his 
philosophy, (ilf em. II. 476.) Tennyson adopted the framework ofithe 
story from the account of Lao-Tsze, but the subject-matter and the 
opinions are modern and Tennyson's own. The poem is even more 
definitely an expression of personal experience and views than is In 
Memoriam. Of the two characters in the poem, the Ancient Sage 
represents Tennyson himself. The younger poet represents the 
voice of the materialist or agnostic, and it is the business of the 
Sage to confute his negative or destructive and pessimistic view 
of life. 

19-30. The materialist refuses to believe in anything beyond 
what he has seen. He has not seen the nameless Power supposed to 
rule the world, therefore the existence of such a Power is not to be 
credited except by those who are "fools of fancy." 

31. The Nameless. In Mem. I. 311, we read of Tennyson, "He 
dreaded the dogmatism of sects and rash definitions of God. *I dare 
hardly name His name,' and accordingly he named Him in 'The 
Ancient Sage' the 'Nameless.' " 

31-49. The Sage answers by affirming that the voice of God is 
heard in the heart, and by emphasizing the limited power of knowl- 
edge to explain any but the most superficial facts of experience. 

42. The million-millionth. Tennyson disliked the atomic theory. 
He said, "Look at the mystery of a grain of sand; you can divide it 
forever and forever. You can not conceive anything material of 
which yx)u can not conceive the half." {Mem. I. 319.) He used this 
infinite divisibility of matter as an argument against materialism. 
He says that this quality of matter is more mystical, more inexplic- 
able, to him than the thought of the existence of his own soul or 
of God. 

46-48. The boundlessness of the universe likewise speaks to him 
of God. 

50-52. And if the Nameless. "If God were to withdraw Himself 
for one single instant from this universe, everything would vanish^, 
into nothingness." (Mem. 1. 319.) m\ 

57-77. The argument in this passage is in lines 66-9. Note the* 
device of iteration by which the statement that the most impor- 



NOTES 359 

tant things are not susceptible of exact proof is driven home; 
then the same device is used to assemble the illustrations by 
which the optimistic and constructive qualities of faith are em- 
phasized. 

7^81. The poet argues that the defects in the world prove it not 
to have been made by a God. 

82-90. The Sage answers that this very imperfection, this half- 
deed, is but the prophecy of a future perfection. Cf. Browning's 
*'On earth the broken arcs, in Heaven the perfect whole." 

91. The Years. The lines of the poet's song to 153 refuse to 
recognize any ruling Power except Time, the power that conducts 
the human being from the ignorance and joy of youth through the 
force and wisdom of middle life, to the feeble forgetfulness of age, and 
finally to "Ancient Night." 

99. The days and hours. In substance the Sage answers that eter- 
nal existence can not be fairly judged by the brief portion of it 
known to us here. Of the real and eternal existence the present life 
is but a passing shadow. "God," says Tennyson, "sees present, 
past, and future as one." (Mem. I. 322.) 

155-170. Of these lines Tyndall wrote, "My judgment may seem 
extravagant, but I do not think the English language has ever before 
been wrought into music equal to that of the lover's threnody." 
(Mem. II. 477.) 

171-182. Dark with griefs and graves. The Sage admits the 
unhappiness on the earth, but he believes it to be the result of incom- 
plete vision. "The Finite can by no means grasp the Infinite . . . 
he had a profound trust that when all is seen face to face all will 
be seen as best." (Mem. I. 316.) 

175. For wert thou. Mr Locker-Lampson reports a conversation 
in which Tennyson, in illustration of mistakes resulting from limited 
power of perception, said that if we had been born with but one sense 
instead of five our understanding of nature would have been very 
different, that to the limited mental vision of worms and oysters the 
world must seem very small indeed, but that beings of five hundred 
senses instead of five would be very far in advance of what we can 
possibly conceive. {Mem. II. 68.) 

179-182. With death shall come the revelation that we have had 
a "misshaping vision of the Powers behind the world" and that the 
world is "wholly fair." 

183-190. The conclusion of the matter in the mind of the material- 
ist is that neither joy nor grief can be of any moment, since death 
ends all. 

191-194. This passage seems to give a pantheistic view of future 
existence. In In Memoriam, XLVIL, the belief that the self should 
"remerge in the general Soul" was called a "faith as vague as all 
unsweet" and there was insistence on separate personal consciousness 



360 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

after death. "I shall know him when we meet," Tennyson says of 
Arthur Hallam. 

1 99-209. The Sage asserts that death is but the entrance to a higher 
life. 

204. The black negation. Tennyson, in commenting on the death 
of his mother ("the departure of so blessed a being' 0» said, "We all 
of us hate the pompous funeral we have to join in, black plumes, 
black coaches, and nonsense. We should like all to go in white and 
gold rather, but convention is against us." (Mem. II. 18.) 

212-213. The voice of the skeptic agamst immortality is overborne 
by the universal instinct in its favor. 

216. Yesterday. "To-day" means this life; "yesterday" is a life 
before this life. For the doctrine of prenatal existence cf. The Two 
Voices, 11. 379-84: 

"Moreover, something is or seems. 
That touches me with mystic gleams. 
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — 
Of something felt, like something here; 
Of something done, I know not where; 
Such as no language may declare." 

See also Loweirs In the Twilight, 

•Sometimes a breath floats by me. 
An odor from Dreamland sent, 
That makes the ghost seem nigh me 
Of a splendour that came and went. 
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not 
In what diviner sphere," etc. 

Cf. Mrs. Browning^s Aurora Leigh, Bk. 1, 11. 9-14, Vaughan's Retreat, 
and Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality. 

219. The Passion of the Past. "The passages about 'Faith' and 
the 'Passion of the Past' were more especially my own personal 
feelings. This 'Passion of the Past' I used to feel when a boy." 
{Mem. II. 319.) Cf. note on '* Tears, Idle Tears.'' 

229-239. When Tyndall first visited Farringford Tennyson spoke 
of the wonderful state of consciousness superinduced by thinking of 
his own name, "the apparent isolation of the spirit from the body 
with absolute clearness of mind," and the poet then used this experi- 
ence as an argument against materialism and for personal immortality. 
(Mem. II. 473. Cf. also Mem. I. 320.) 

249. Up to this point the arguments of the Sage for belief in God 
and immortality have been based on the voice of God in the heart, 
memories of a life before this life, and moments of experience in 
which there is mystical union between the human and the divine. 

258. Let be thy wail. Perhaps no one can absolutely know the 
secrets of the future life, but certainly this life offers opportunities of 
practical goodness. 

278. An evil life is a cloud between the soul of man and a knowl- 



NOTES 361 

edge of God, but to the soul climbing towards the highest, full knowl- 
edge may finally come. 

FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE 

In 1880 Tennyson and his son made a tour in Italy. "Over Sirmio, 
the peninsula of Catullus, we roamed all day. My father liked this, 
I think, the best of anything we had seen on our tour. . . . Here he 
made his 'Frater Ave atque Vale.' " (Mem. II. 247.) The row 
from Desenzano and the associations of Sirmione with Catullus gave 
Tennyson especial delight, because Catullus was one of his favorite 
poets. •*! love Catullus for his perfection of form and for his tender- 
ness." (Mem. I. 266.) Cf. also a letter to Gladstone: *'Nor can any 
modern elegy, so long as men retain the least hope in the after-life 
of those whom they loved, equal in pathos the desolation of that 
everlasting farewell, 'Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.' " 
(Mem. II. 239.) 

Note that the verse has eight stresses to a line, and that the nine 
lines rhyme together. 

I. Sirmione. A peninsula ("all but island") in the Lago de 
Garda. The villa of Catullus was formerly at the end of it. "O 
venusta Sirmio," is a quotation from Catullus. "Venusta" means 
"lovely." 

5. *'Ave atque vale." Hail and farewell. Also quoted from the 
poem of Catullus to his brother. 

8. Lydian laughter. Cf. Catullus, "O Lydiae lacus undae, Ridete." 

MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
In the Preface to the Memoir Hallam Tennyson writes thus of 
his father: "For those who cared to know about his literary history 
he wrote 'Merlin and the Gleam.' From his boyhood he had felt 
the magic of Merlin — that spirit of poetry — which bade him know 
his power and follow throughout his work a pure and high ideal with 
a simple and single devotedness and a desire to ennoble the life of the 
world, and which helped him through doubts and difficulties to endure 
'as seeing Him who is invisible.' " A detailed biographical explanation 
of the poem follows. Stanza II. describes Tennyson's early poetry. 
The "croak of the raven" is the hostility of the early reviewers. The 
inward voice told him not to be disheartened, and "by the delight in 
his own romantic fancy and by the harmonies of nature . . . the in- 
spiration of the poet was renewed." Stanza V. describes the period 
of the Eclogues and English Idylls. Stanza VI., describing The Idylls 
ofi/ihe King, precedes the one on In Memoriam, because the plan of the 
Idylls had been conceived before Hallam's death. In the remaining 
stanzas are recorded the experiences detailed in In Memoriam, and 
finally we have the aged poet's calm prevision of death and his 
urgent call to the "young mariner" to follow the highest ideals of life. 



362 SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON 

The underlying idea of this autobiographic allegory is frequent in 
Tennyson's poems. The irregular, archaic form of the verse should 
be noted, in consonance with which is the use of "learn'd" (formerly 
in good use for "taught"), and "can" in an obsolete form, meaning 
"to be able to do." 

FAR-FAR-AWAY 

The words in this title had always a strange charm for Tennyson 
(Mem. I. 11). The poem was written before August, 1888, for Hallam 
Tennyson, in describing a walk with his father in that month, says, 
"Leaning over a gate and looking over the woods, he repeated his 
*Vastness' and 'Far-far-away' without hesitating for a moment." 
{Mem. II. 346.) It was published in Demeter and Other Poems, 
December, 1889. 

1-2. Cf. note introductory to "Tears, Idle Tears.'' 

3. For beautiful use of these words see The Ancient Sage, 11. 225- 
226. 

5. Evening hells. "Distant bells always charmed him with their 
•lin-lan-lone,' and, when heard over the sea or a lake, he was never 
tired of listening to them." (Mem. II. 366.) 

II. Some fair dawn. I.e., life after death. 

THE THROSTLE 

In 1888-9 Tennyson had a severe attack of rheumatism. 
"Throughout the winter he fed the thrushes and other birds as usual 
out of his window. Towards the end of this month [February] he 
sat in his kitchen-garden summer-house, listening attentively to the 
different notes of the thrush, and finishing his song of 'The Throstle,' 
which had been begun in the same garden [Farringford] years ago." 
(Mem. II. 353.) It was printed in The New York World on Septem- 
ber 29, and in The New Review in October of 1889. 

The thrush as a prophet of summer has been often celebrated. 
Cf. especially the very beautiful lines in Robert Browning's Home 
Thoughts from Abroad. It is a description of an English April and 
May. The last lines are: 

"Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dew-drops — at the bent spray's edge — 
That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over, 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture." 

CROSSING THE BAR 

*• 'Crossing the Bar' was written in my father's eighty-first year, 
on a day in October when we came from Aldworth to Farringford. 
Before reaching Farringford he had the Moaning of the Bar in his 
mind, and after dinner he showed me this poem written out. 

"I said, 'That is the crown of your life's work.' He answered, 'It 



NOTES 363 

came in a moment.' He explained the 'Pilot' as 'That Divine and 
Unseen Who is alv/ays guiding us.' 

"A few days before my father's death he said to me: 'Mind you 
put "Crossing the Bar" at the end of all editions of my Poems.* " 
(Mem. II. 366-7.) 

"My father considered Edmund Lushington's translation into 
Greek of 'Crossing the Bar' one of the finest translations he had ever 
read." (Mem. II. 367, where translation is given.) 

7. When that which drew. Cf. Epilogue (stanza 31) of In Memo- 
riam, 

"A soul shall draw from out the vast," etc. 
Also Coming of Arthur, 1. 410, 

"From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 
Also The Ancient Sage, 11. 191-4. 



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